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A STUDY IN 
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 



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A STUDY IN 
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 



BY 

FONTAINE T. FOX 

OF THE LOUISVILLE BAR 




New York and Washington 

THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

1911 



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Copyright, 1811, by 
The Neale Publishing Company 



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TO 

HON. BOYD WINCHESTER 

Former Congressman from Kentucl /, Minister 

to Switzerland, and my classmate and 

lifelong friend, this book is 

dedicated by 

THE AUTHOR 



CHAPTEE I 

In the study of history and in the study of 
the lives of great men the moral nature of the 
facts of both studies seems to escape the 
thoughtful attention of many readers. All men, 
it is true, read with their eyes ; but equally is it 
true that only a few read with their minds. That 
history is philosophy teaching by example has 
been long accepted as a truism. Indeed, if his- 
tory be merely a chronicle of past events, it is 
as useless as worn out furniture, and should be 
stored in the attic of the mind. 

The facts in the lives of great men are the 
true interpreters of their real characters. 
Through these facts we may penetrate to the 
motives of men. Through the moral nature of 
these facts, correctly analyzed, we may solve the 
problems of the lives of the great of the past 
with the unerring certainty of a mathematical 
demonstration. The injustice that is done to the 
character of some men is due more to the ab- 
sence of thought in the mind of the reader than 
to hate, envy, or to prejudice, while the enthusi- 
astic admiration so generally given to others, by 



10 A STUDY IN ALEXANDEK HAMILTON 

which they get the start of this majestic world, 
may be attributed to the same cause. Facts 
are the test, the true index to the character of 
men. 

The smaller and, apparently, the more insig- 
nificant the facts in their nature, the surer and 
the more indisputable their evidence against 
men. It is only in trifles that we let go of our- 
selves, get off guard, act out of our inner na- 
ture, and are as God made us, guided by the 
promptings of the act alone, with no thought of 
its effect. 

I began the study of the life and the character 
of Alexander Hamilton with a feeling similar 
to that of a surgeon who, scalpel in hand, ap- 
proaches the table upon which lies the body 
that he intends to make the subject of a surgical 
analysis. Taught to respect and to admire Ham- 
ilton from my earliest years by my father, to 
whom Hamilton was almost an ideal man, I had 
accepted, with unquestioning faith, his estimate 
of the man as just. The shock was great when 
I found myself rejecting all the fabrication of 
writers who were dazzled by Hamilton's im- 
modest assertion of his own abilities. From 
intense admiration, I came to hold the man in 
contempt for his life, for his conduct, and for 
his motives. 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON H 

In intellect Alexander Hamilton was a giant ; 
in character lie was morally a weakling. With- 
out a father, without a country, without a God, 
he could have been nothing less than what he 
was. The facts of his career prove the truth of 
this summary of the man. 

And it is time that the truth should be told 
about this adventurer in American politics. 
More dazzling in manner than Benjamin Dis- 
raeli, except as a writer, more magnetic in char- 
acter, more eloquent in debate, and more ac- 
complished in letters, his career outshines that 
of the great Englishman, whom he somewhat 
resembles. He possessed to an eminent degree 
those qualities of mind that in public men have 
in all ages and in all countries been so attractive 
to their fellowmen, and for which they have al- 
ways been forgiven every misdoing. Where the 
misdoings of such men could not always be con- 
cealed, always they have been defended long and 
vigorously, until they have never failed to dwin- 
dle to insignificant faults, or to mere acts of 
thoughtless imprudence. 

Hamilton's character in private life will be 
found to correspond with his political principles, 
the former in reality being the correlative of the 
latter. 

I shall consider his character solely upon the 



12 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

statements made in the ** vindication ' ' of the 
charge of speculating in Treasury warrants 
that was published by himself, which vindication 
now lies before me. 

Before making any extracts from Hamilton's 
vindication, or confession, I desire to state that 
I have in my library the vindication, Callender's 
two books, the statements in one of which caused 
Hamilton to publish his vindication, and also 
the original autograph letter of Beverley Ean- 
dolph, about the trial of Callender for libel. 

The title page of the vindication is as follows : 
Ohservations on Certain Documents Contained 
in No. V and VI of ^^The History of the United 
States for the Year 1796/' in Which the Charge 
of Speculation Against Alexander Hamiltofi, 
Late Secretary of the Treasury, is Fully Re- 
futed. Written by Himself. Philadelphia: 
Printed for John Fenno, by John Bioren. 1797. 

My extracts will be taken from the original 
sources, not from other books and pamphlets. 

Before giving the statements made in his vin- 
dication I shall quote from two authors, of 
whom one refers to Hamilton as a man, the 
other to the vindication. I quote first from 
Gouverneur Morris, who delivered Hamilton's 
funeral oration : 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 13 

**Tlie first point of his biography is that he 
was a stranger of illegitimate birth — some mode 
must be contrived to pass over this handsomely. 
He was indiscreet, vain and opinionated — these 
things must be told or the character will be in- 
complete, and yet they must be told in such 
manner as not to destroy the interest. He was 
in principle opposed to republican and attached 
to monarchial government, and then his opinions 
were generally known, and have been long and 
loudly proclaimed. His share in forming our 
Constitution must be mentioned, and his un- 
favourable opinion can not therefore be con- 
cealed. The most important part of his life was 
his administration of the finances. The system 
he proposed was in one respect radically wrong ; 
moreover, it has been the subject of some just 
and much unjust criticism. Many are still hos- 
tile to it, though on improper ground. I must 
not either dwell on his domestic life ; he has long 
since foolishly published the avowal of conjugal 
infidelity." — Memoirs of Gouverneur Morris, 2 
vols., pp. 456, 457. 

I now quote from the Federalist System, by 
I. S. Bassett, one of the historical series in The 
American Nation — A History, pp. 215, 216: 



14 A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 

^'Soon after his arrival in America Monroe 
gave a savage blow to Hamilton, probably in 
retaliation for the latter 's influence on his recall. 
In 1792 one Eeynolds had been suspected of 
frauds against the government and the atfair 
had taken such a turn as to suggest that Hamil- 
ton was compromised with him. The evidence 
was embraced in certain letters whose real im- 
port was far different from what appeared on 
the surface. The matter was referred to three 
members of Congress — Monroe, Venable, and 
Muhlenberg. To them Hamilton owned in con- 
fidence that the letters were written in connec- 
tion with an illicit relation with Mrs. Reynolds 
which had been carried on with her husband's 
knowledge, and by reason of which Hamilton 
had paid Reynolds about twelve hundred dollars 
for blackmail. The three men were satisfied, 
and assured the public that Hamilton was inno- 
cent. The papers were placed in Monroe's 
hands, all promising to keep them secret. To 
them Monroe added a statement by Reynolds 
which was not submitted to Hamilton, the pur- 
port of which was to confirm the original charge 
of complicity in fraud. It was a piece of bad 
dealing on Monroe's part, and came near in- 
volving the two men in a duel at a later date. 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 15 

When Monroe went to France lie left the papers 
in the hands of a friend in Virginia whose name 
has never been revealed, but when Callender's 
annual register appeared in 1797 they were 
given to the public. Hamilton called on the 
three custodians for an explanation. Muhlen- 
berg and Venable promptly and explicitly ex- 
onerated themselves, but Monroe halted and 
shifted his excuses in such a manner that it is 
evident that he was responsible for the revela- 
tion. It is assumed that he disclosed them in 
revenge for his own sufferings.'^ 

In considering the statements of this extract 
I have been at a loss to find what suffering Mon- 
roe could have felt by reason of Hamilton's dis- 
honorable conduct towards his own wife, or 
from his complicity in the fraudulent transac- 
tion, with Reynolds as his agent, to speculate in 
Treasury warrants, or from his adulterous 
amour with Mrs. Reynolds. The letters men- 
tioned in the foregoing extract can be found in 
CalUnder's History of the United States for 
1796, beginning on page 209. 

Page 9 : '^ The charge against me is a connec- 
tion with one James Reynolds for purposes of 



16 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

improper pecuniary speculation. My real crime 
is an amorous connection with Ms wife, for a 
considerable time with his privity and conni- 
vance, if not originally brought on by a combina- 
tion between the husband and wife with the de- 
sign to extort money from me/' 

Aaron Burr was never accused by his bitter- 
est enemy of kissing and then telling. 

A critical examination of the vindication no- 
where discloses such a juncture of events con- 
nected with the charge as would render this 
statement in any way logically necessary in re- 
futing the charge of speculation. 

Pages 9 and 10: ^^This confession is not 
made without a blush. I can not be the apologist 
of any vice because the ardour of passion may 
have made it mine. I can never cease to con- 
demn myself for the pang, which it may inflict 
in a bosom eminently entitled to all my grati- 
tude, fidelity and love. But that bosom will ap- 
prove, that even at so great an expense, T should 
effectually wipe away a more serious stain from 
a name which it cherishes with no less elevation 
than tenderness. The public too will, I trust, 
excuse the confession. The necessity of it to 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 17 

my defence against a more heinous charge could 
alone have extorted from me so painful an in- 
decorum. ' ' 

Why drag his wife, the mother of his children, 
into this nauseous and disgusting muddle! His 
character, not hers, had to be burnished anew. 
What was his conduct! At the worst, in his 
opinion, ^'an indecorum" only. What is the 
statement in this extract ! It is simply the cant 
of a sanctimonious hypocrite striving to use a 
noble sentiment in his own service, in the hope 
that its invocation would regain for him the re- 
spect and the confidence of the public. 

But is the charge of speculation in Treasury 
warrants ^'a more heinous charge'' than treach- 
ery to his conjugal vow! 

Suppose his wife had been so false to her 
conjugal vow, would he have considered her 
offense less heinous than that charged against 
him! 

Taking his own estimate of his honor as a 
man, a husband, and as a father, you have the 
clew to this creature's despicable character. 

He sat for his own portrait, iknd he has 
painted himself in fadeless colors to the verv 
hfe. 



18 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

Page 17 : ^ ' Some time in the summer of tlie 
year 1791 a woman called at my house in the 
City of Philadelphia and asked to speak with 
me in private. I attended her into a room apart 
from the family. With a seeming air of affliction 
she informed me that she was the daughter of 
a Mr. Lewis, sister to a Mr. G. Livingston of the 
State of New York, and wife to a Mr. Keynolds 
whose father was in the commissary department 
during the war with Great Britain, that her hus- 
band, who for a long time had treated her very 
cruelly, had lately left her, to live with another 
woman, and in so destitute a condition, that 
though desirous of returning to her friends she 
had not the means — that knowing I was a citizen 
of New York, she had taken the liberty to apply 
to my humanity for assistance.*^ 

Humanity seems a strange word to use in this 
connection. Charity, I believe, is the word gen- 
erally used by well regulated minds. 

Page 18 : ^ ' I replied that her situation was a 
very interesting one — that I was disposed to af- 
ford her assistance to convey her to her friends, 
but this at the moment not being convenient to 
me (which was the fact) I must request the place 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 19 

of her residence, to which I should bring or send 
a small supply of money. She told me the street 
and number of the house where she lodged. In 
the evening I put a bank bill in my pocket and 
went to the^house. I enquired for Mrs. Eeynolds 
and was shewn upstairs, at the head of which 
she met me and conducted me into a bed room. 
I took the bill out of my pocket and gave it to 
her. Some conversation ensued from which it 
was quickly apparent that other than pecuniary 
consolation would be acceptable.'' 

Note that this meeting is the first one between 
Hamilton and Mrs. Eeynolds, and also note that 
this meeting occurred in the summer of the year 
1791. Hamilton's statement is the pivotal point 
of the whole matter as to her husband and his 
charge against Hamilton. 

Page 21 : ' ' On the 19th, I received the prom- 
ised letter (No. IV-b) the essence of which is 
that he was willing to take a thousand dollars 
as the plaister for his wounded honour. 

*'I determined to give it to him, and did so in 
two payments, as per receipts (No. V and VI) 
dated the 22nd of December and 3rd of January 
[1791].'' 



20 A STUDY IN" ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 

Appendix, p. xv : 

^^No. V. 

^^Eeceived December 22 of Alexander Hamil- 
ton six hundred dollars on account of a sum of 
one thousand dollars due to me. 

' ' James Reynolds. 
^^No.VL 
^'Eeceived Philadelphiai January 3 1791 of 
Alexander Hamilton four hundred dollars in 
full of all demands. James Reynolds.*' 

The amounts specified in these two receipts 
make the $1,000 mentioned in the extract of 
page 21, while the receipts are those mentioned 
in the same extract. They are so fully described 
that no one can be mistaken as to their identity. 
This $1,000 is ''the plaister for his [Reynolds's] 
wounded honour." 

The first receipt. No. V, is dated December 
22, which must be December of the year 1790, 
because receipt No. VI, which was for the bal- 
ance of the $1,000, was dated January 3, 1791. 
Consequently Hamilton plastered Reynolds's 
wounded honor at least six to eight months be- 
fore he had ever seen Mrs. Reynolds, ''some 
time in the summer of 1791," unless the summer 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 21 

of 1791 came ahead of time in Philadelphia, be- 
fore December 22, 1790, and certainly before 
January 3, 1791. Comment is unnecessary. 

Hamilton seemed to be absolutely uncon- 
scious of the baseness of character as disclosed 
by the facts that he himself brought forward in 
his defense. 

Page 18: ''After this I had frequent meet- 
ings with her, most of them at my own house ; 
Mrs. Hamilton with her children being absent 
on a visit to her father.'' 

Did any other man claiming to be a gentleman 
ever sink to such degradation, to such debauch- 
ery, then pubhcly confess it in print! Yet this 
unscrupulous creature has been held up to 
American youth by American writers of biog- 
raphy and of history and by American states- 
men and by American ministers of the Gospel 
''as the glass of fashion and the mould of form'' 
—the one ideal gentleman known to American 
history, to American society, and to American 
politics. Hamilton turned his liom.e into a 
bawdy house. 

Immediately following the extracts relative to 
the two receipts I find this sentence : 



22 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

Page 22: ^* It is a little remarkable that an 
avaricious speculating secretary of the treasury 
should have been so straitened for money as to 
be obliged to satisfy an engagement of this sort 
by two different payments.'' 

There is in the statement in this extract the 
artistic touch of delicate satire, as the last re- 
ceipt, No. VI, being ^4n full of all demands'' 
and the last installment of the ^^plaister" ap- 
plied to Eeynolds's wounded honor, would in- 
clude the wages due Mrs. Eeynolds for her 
physical services as well as the amount due her 
husband as shown by the balance sheet struck 
on the speculative venture of Messrs. Hamilton 
& Eeynolds. But Eeynolds could see what was 
in Future's womb. No one with an impartial 
mind, critically reading this vindication, can 
conceive that Hamilton, though a great lawyer, 
had the slightest conception of the probative 
value of a fact upon the issue as to what was 
offered in evidence, or that he was conscious of 
the effect that his own statements would have 
upon public opinion. To his friends this con- 
fession must have produced an intense feeling 
of pity, of sympathy, and of regret ; to his ene- 
mies, a feeling of unutterable contempt and 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDEB HAMILTON 23 

scorn as well as of fiendish delight ; to those who 
were neither friend nor foe, a feeling of won- 
derment that he had not submitted the manu- 
script before publication to a true friend, who 
would have had every statement relative to 
Mrs. Eeynolds eliminated. 

While all the loathsome incidents connected 
with Hamilton's connection with Mrs. Eeynolds 
are given publicly, without the least reserve, at 
the same time the reader is told by Hamilton of 
his injury to his wife, to his own conscience, and 
to his honor. Not one statement about Mrs. 
Eeynolds, nor his own wife, nor his honor, nor 
his conscience tends in the slightest degree to 
disprove the charge of his speculative venture 
with Eeynolds. The charge of speculation was 
abroad, in the world of politics, in society, at 
that time. 

One reading the vindication at this day does 
not wonder that Hamilton's descendants have 
been buying it up for over a hundred years, to 
suppress it. Only at very long intervals can a 
copy be found, in some old book store, by one 
whose curiosity is aroused by the narratives of 
writers that have never seen it. 

The literary world has been shocked by the 
confessions of Eousseau. But what are they 



^4: A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

when compared to the confessions of Alexander 
Hamilton! This Reynolds episode seems con- 
sidered by him, as it was certainly treated, as 
only an *' indecorum '^ in his private and social 
life. 



CHAPTER II 

Bearing in mind these two pivotal facts, tliat 
Alexander Hamilton first met Mrs. Reynolds 
^^sorne time in the sunamer of the year 1791/' 
and that for her services in that behalf (excuse 
the language of the bar, but it is so expressive, 
so descriptive), he paid to her husband $1,000, 
the first payment being made December 22, 1790, 
^'on account of a sum of one thousand dollars 
due to me," and the second, and last, being made 
January 3, 1791, '^in full of all demands. '^ It 
will be observed that these receipts bear evi- 
dence of the touch of a legal hand. If Hamilton 
owed Reynolds $1,000 on December 22, 1790, the 
debt could not have been created by any services 
rendered to Hamilton by Mrs. Reynolds, be- 
cause at that time Hamilton had not seen her; 
nor did he see her for at least six months after 
December 22, 1790. The pertinent question 
springs at once to a thoughtful reader. Upon 
what account did Hamilton owe Reynolds that 
sum of money? The entire transaction, no mat- 
ter to what it related, was closed by the payment 
of January 3, 1791, because that receipt was ^'in 

25 



26 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

full of all demands. ' ' This money was not paid 
to Eeynolds on account of any connection be- 
tween Hamilton and Mrs. Eeynolds, because if 
it had been so paid, Hamilton was a deliberate 
liar in giving incorrect dates as to the payments. 
He had no motive to give wrong dates if he in- 
tended this money as a^'plaister'^ to Eeynolds 's 
wounded honor. Dates subsequent to the sum- 
mer of the year 1791 alone would prove any re- 
lation of these payments to a connection between 
Hamilton and Mrs. Eeynolds. 

Pages 10 and 11: *'But the present accusa- 
tion imputes to me as much folly as wickedness 
— All the documents show, it is otherwise matter 
of notoriety, that Eeynolds was an obscure, un- 
important and profligate man. Nothing could 
be more weak, because nothing could be more un- 
safe, than to make use of such an instrument ; to 
use him too without any intermediate agent 
more worthy of confidence who might keep me 
out of sight, to write him numerous letters re- 
cording the objects of the improper connection 
(for this is pretended and that the letters were 
burnt at my request), to unbosom myself to him, 
with a prodigality of confidence, by very un- 
necessarily telling him, as he alleges, of a con- 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 27 

nection in speculation between myself and Mr. 
Duer. It is very extraordinary, if the head of 
the money department of a country, being un- 
principled enough to sacrifice his trust and his 
integrity, could not have contrived objects of 
profits sufficiently large to have engaged the co- 
operation of men of far greater importance than 
Eeynolds, and with whom there could have been 
due safety, and should have been driven to the 
necessity of unkennelling such a reptile to be 
the instrument of his cupidity.'^ 

Are men of ^^far greater importance than 
Eeynolds'' accustomed to be willing tools or 
intermediate agents in such speculative transac- 
tions 1 Would Alexander Hamilton have dared 
to approach any man of known honesty, any gen- 
tleman, to engage in this speculation! As to his 
connection with Duer, I believe it to be true that 
Hamilton escaped exposure in the dishonest 
speculation with Duer by Duer's very fortunate 
death, before the congressional committee in its 
investigation had reached Hamilton's connec- 
tion with the Hamilton-Duer speculation. 

But would it have been possible for a man of 
despicable character and of low social position 
to have injured in any way, or for any purpose. 



28 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

a man of Hamilton's social standing, profes- 
sional character, and political influence? If the 
charges against Hamilton were all false, and 
known by him to be false, would he not have 
treated them with the silent contempt of an hon- 
orable, self-respecting, and courageous man, 
trusting to the impenetrable shield of his own 
honesty! 

I quote from ^^Observations,'' etc. — really a 
preface to the vindication. 

"The spirit of Jacobinism, if not entirely a 
new spirit, has at least been clothed with a more 
gigantic body and armed with more powerful 
weapons than it ever before possessed. It is 
perhaps not too much to say, that it threatens 
more extensive and complicated mischiefs to the 
world than have hitherto flowed from the three 
great scourges of mankind, War, Pestilence 
and Famine. To what point it will ultimately 
lead society, it is impossible for human fore- 
sight to pronounce; but there is just ground to 
apprehend that its progress will be marked 
with calamities of which the dreadful incidents 
of the French revolution afford a very faint 
image. Incessantly busied in undermining all 
the props of public security and private happi- 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 



29 



riess, it seems to threaten the political and moral 
world with a complete overthrow. 

'^A principal engine, by which this spirit en- 
deavours to accomplish its purposes is that of 
calumny. It is essential to its success that the 
influence of men of upright principles, disposed 
and able to resist its enterprises, shall be at all 
events destroyed. Not content with traducing 
their best efforts for the public good, with niis- 
representing their purest motives, with inferring 
criminality from actions innocent or laudable, 
the most direct falsehoods are invented and 
propagated, with undaunted effrontery and un- 
relenting perseverance. Lies often detected and 
refuted are still revived and repeated, in the 
hope that the refutation may have been forgotten 
or that the frequency and boldness of accusation 
may supply the place of truth and proof. The 
most profligate men are encouraged, probably 
bribed, certainly with patronage if not with 
money, to becom^e informers and accusers. 
And when tales, which their characters alone 
ought to discredit, are refuted by evidence and 
facts which oblige the patrons of them to aban- 
don their support, they still continue in corrod- 
ing whispers to wear away the reputation which 
they could not directly subvert. If, luckily for 



30 A STUDY IN ALEXANDEK HAMILTON 

the conspirators against honest fame, any lit- 
tle foible or folly can be traced out in one whom 
they desire to persecute, it becomes at once in 
their hands a two-edged sword, by which to 
wound the public character and stab the private 
felicity of the person. With such men, nothing 
is sacred. Even the peace of an unoffending and 
amiable wife is a welcome repast to their in- 
satiate fury against the husband. 

*^In the gratification of this baleful spirit, we 
not only hear the Jacobian newspapers continu- 
ally ring with odious insinuations and charges 
against many of our most virtuous citizens ; but, 
not satisfied with this, a measure new in this 
country has been lately adopted to give greater 
efficacy to the system of defamation — periodi- 
cal pamphlets issued from the same presses, full 
freighted with misrepresentation and falsehood, 
artfully calculated to hold up the opponents of 
the Faction to the jealousy and distrust of the 
present generation and if possible, to transmit 
their names with dishonour to posterity. Even 
the great and multiplied services, the tried and 
rarely equalled virtues of a Washington, can 
secure no exemption. 

^MIow then can I, with pretensions every way 
inferior expect to escape ? And if truly this be, 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 31 

as every appearance indicates, a conspiracy of 
vice against virtue, ought I not rather to be 
flattered, that I have been so long and so pecu 
liarly an object of persecution! Ought I to re- 
gret, if there be anything about me, so formid- 
able to the Faction as to have made me worthy 
to be distinguished by the plentitude of its ran- 
cour and venom? 

^^It is certain that T have had a pretty copious 
experience of its malignity. For the honour of 
human nature, it is to be hoped that the ex- 
amples are not numerous of men so greatly 
calumniated and persecuted, as I have been, 
with so little cause. * * * 

^^Eelying upon this weakness of human na- 
ture, the Jacobin Scandal-Club, though often 
defeated, constantly return to the charge. '' 

As a very striking contrast to the noble and 
elevated sentiments expressed in the preceding 
extracts, so creditable to Alexander Hamilton, 
who could so easily and naturally act a virtue 
that he had not, I copy a confidential letter that 
he wrote to Justice John Eutledge, one of 
Aaron Burr's relatives. Alexander Hamilton 
evidently had a Jacobin scandal club of his own, 
of which he was the sole member. This letter, 



32 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

with editorial introduction, is taken from The 
Century Magazine of June, 1900. 

[The followins: letter of Alexander Hamilton, though 
addressed to John Rutledge, Associate Justice of the Su- 
preme Court, was found among the papers of Francis Hop- 
kinson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence. It is here printed from the manuscript. Although a 
small portion of it has been published before, as a whole it 
has not appeared before. 

The enclosed characterization of Burr, it is believed, 
has not before been published, though in large part it is 
similar in expression to letters addressed by Hamilton to 
his contemporaries in opposition to Burr's political aspira- 
tions. — Editor.] 

^^New York Jany. 4, 1801. 
^^My Dear Sir 

^^My extreme anxiety about the ensuing elec- 
tion of President by the House of Representa- 
tives will excuse to you the liberty I take in ad- 
dressing you concerning it without being con- 
sulted by you. Did you know Mr. Burr as well 
as I do, I should think it unnecessary. With 
your honest attachment to the country and cor- 
rectness of views, it should not then be possible 
for you to hesitate, if you now do, about the 
course to be taken. You would be clearly of 
opinion with me that Mr. Jefferson is to be pre- 
ferred. As long as the Federal party preserve 
their high ground of integrity and principle, I 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 



33 



shall not despair of the public weal. But if they 
quit it and descend to be the willing instruments 
of the Elevation of the most unfit and most dan- 
gerous man of the community to the highest 
station in the Government I shall no longer see 
any anchor for the hopes of good men. I shall 
at once anticipate all the evils that a daring and 
unprincipled ambition wielding the lever of 
Jacobinism can bring upon an infatuated coun- 
try. 

' ' The enclosed paper exhibits a faithful sketch 
of Mr. Burr's character as I believe it to exist, 
with better opportunities than almost any other 
man of forming a true estimate. 

''The expectation, I know, is that if Mr. Burr 
shall owe his elevation to the Federal party, he 
will judge it his interest to adhere to that party. 
But it ought to be recollected that he will owe it 
in the first instance to the antifederal party; 
that among these, perhaps not in the House of 
Eepresentatives, a numerous class prefers him 
to Mr. Jefferson as best adapted by the boldness 
and cunning of his temper to fulfill their mis- 
chievous views ; and that it will be the interest 
of his ambition to preserve and cultivate these 
friends. Mr. Burr will doubtless be governed 
bv his interests as he views it. But stable power 



34 A STUDY IN ALEXANDEB HAMILTON 

and wealth being his objects — and there being 
no prospect tliat the respectable and sober Fed- 
eralists will countenance the projects of an ir- 
I'egnlar ambition or prodigal cupidity, he will 
not long lean npon them — but selecting from 
among them men suited to his purpose, he will 
seek with the aid of these, and of the most un- 
principled of the opposite party to accomplish 
his ends. At least such ought to be our calcu- 
lation. From such a man as him, who practices 
all the maxims of a Catiline, who, while despis- 
ing, has played the whole game of democracy, 
what better is to be looked fori 'Tis not to a 
chapter of accidents that we ought to trust the 
Government peace and happiness of our coun- 
try. 'Tis enough for us to know that Mr. Burr 
is one of the most unprincipled men in the U. 
States in order to determine us to decline be- 
ing responsible for the precarious issues of his 
calculations of interest. 

^ ' Very different ought to be our plans. Under 
the uncertainty of the event we ought to seek 
to obtain from Mr. Jefferson these assurances : 
1. That the present Fiscal system will be main- 
tained. 2. That the present neutral plan will 
be adhered to. 3. That the Navy will be pre- 
served and gradually increased. 4. That Fed- 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDEK HAMILTON" 35 

eralists now in office not being Heads of the 
great departments will be retained. As to the 
heads of Departments and other matters he 
ought to be free. 

*^You can not in my opinion render a greater 
service to your country than by exerting your 
influence to counter-act the impolitic and impure 
idea of raising Mr. Burr to the Chief Magis- 
tracy. 

^^ Adieu my dear sir, Yrs. with 

* ^ sincere affecn & regard 

^'A Hamilton 
''J. Rutlege, Esqr.'' 

[The enclosure also in Hamilton's handwriting.] 

* ^ Confidential. 
*^A Burr 
'^1. He is in every sense a profligate, a 
voluptuary in the extreme, with uncommon hab- 
its of expense, in his profession extortionate to 
a proverb, suspected on strong grounds of hav- 
ing corruptly served the views of the Holland 
Company in the capacity of a member of our 
legislature;* and understood to have been 
guilty of several breaches of probity in his pe- 

*He co-operated in obtaining a law to permit aliens to hold 
and occupy lands. 



36 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

cuniary transactions. His very friends do not 
insist upon his integrity. 

^ * 2. He is without doubt insolvent for a large 
deficit. All his visible property is deeply mort- 
gaged and he is known to owe other large debts 
for which there is no specific security. Of the 
number of these is a judgment in favour of Mr. 
Angerstien for a sum which with interest 
amounts to about 80,000 dollars. 

^^3. The fair emoluments of any station un- 
der our government will not equal his expenses 
in that station ; still less will they suffice to ex- 
tricate him from his embarrassments. He must 
therefore from the necessity of his situation 
have recourse to unworthy expedients. These 
may be a bargain and sale with some foreign 
power or combination with public agents in pro- 
jects of gain by means of the public monies; 
perhaps and probably to enlarge the sphere — 
a war. 

*^4. He has no pretensions to the station 
from services. He acted in different capacities 
in the last war finally with the rank of Lt. Col. 
in a regiment and gave indications of being a 
good officer ; but without having had the oppor- 
tunity of performing any distinguished action. 
At a critical period of the war, he resigned his 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 37 

commission, assigning for cause ill health and 
went to repose at Paramus in the State of New 
J ersey. If his health was bad, he might without 
difficulty have obtained a furlough and was not 
obliged to resign. He was afterwards seen in his 
usual health. The circumstances excited much 
jealousy of his motives. In civil life he has 
never projected nor aided in producing a single 
measure of important public utility. 

*^5. He has constantly sided with the party 
hostile to Federal measures before and siace 
the present constitution of the U. States. In 
opposing the adoption of this Constitution he 
was engaged covertly and insidiously; because 
as he said at the time 4t was too strong and too 
weak' and he has been uniformly the opposer 
of the Federal Administration. 

^ ' 6. No mortal man can tell what his political 
principles are. He has talked all around the 
compass. At times he has dealt in all the jargon 
of Jacobinism ; at other times he has proclaimed 
decidedly the total insufficiency of the Federal 
Government and the necessity of changes to one 
far more energetic. The truth seems to be that 
he has no plan but that of getting power by any 
means and keeping it by all means. It is prob- 
able that if he has any theory tis that of a simple 



^8 A STUDY IN AI.EXANDEE HAMILTON 

despotism. He has intimated that he thinks 
the present French Constitution not a bad one. 

^'1, He is of a temper bold enough to think 
no enterprise too hazardous and sanguine 
enougli to think none too difficult. He has cen- 
sured the leaders of the Federal party as want- 
ing in vigour and enterprise, for not having es- 
tablished a strong government when they were 
in possession of the power and influence. 

^^8. Discerning men of all parties agree in 
ascribing to him an irregular and inordinate 
ambition. Like Catiline he is indefatigable in 
courting the young and the profligate. He 
knows well the weak sides of human nature and 
takes care to play in with the passions of all 
with whom he has intercourse. By natural dis- 
position, the haughtiest of men, he is at the same 
time the most creeping to answer his purposes. 
Cold and collected by nature and habit he never 
loses sight of his object and scruples no means 
of accomplishing it. He is artful and intriguing 
to an inconceivable degree. In short all his con- 
duct indicates that he has in view nothing less 
than the establishment of supreme power in 
his own person. Of this nothing can be a surer 
index than having in fact high-toned notions of 
government, he has nevertheless constantly op- 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 39 

posed the Federal and courted the popular 
party. As he never can effect his wish by the aid 
of good men, he will court and employ able and 
daring scoundrels of every party and by avail- 
ing himself of their assistance and of all the bad 
passions of the society, he will in all likelihood 
attempt an usurpation. 

''8 [sic]. Within the last three weeks at his 
own table he drank these toasts successively: 
1. The French Eepublic. 2. The commission- 
ers who negotiated the convention. 3. Buona- 
parte. 4. LaFayette : and he countenanced and 
seconded the positions openly advanced by one 
of his guests that it was the interest of this coun- 
try to leave it free to the Belligerent powers to 
sell their prizes in our ports and to build and 
equip ships for their respective uses ; a doctrine 
which evidently aims at turning all the naval 
resources of the U. States into the channel of 
France; and which by making these states the 
most pernicious enemy of G. Britain would com- 
pel her to go to war with us. 

^^9. Though possessing infinite art, cunning 
and address, he is yet to give proofs of great 
or solid abilities. It is certain that at the bar 
he is more remarkable for ingenuity and dexter- 
ity than for sound judgment or good logic. 



40 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

Prom the character of his understanding and 
heart it is likely that any innovations which he 
may effect will be such as to serve the turn of his 
own power, not such as will issue in establish- 
ments favourable to the permanent security and 
prosperity of the Nation — founded upon the 
principles of a strong, free and regular Govern- 
ment. ' ' 

This letter is a brief chronicle and abstract 
of Alexander Hamilton's character and na- 
ture, of his acts and their motives, of his life 
and the means by which he undertook to gain 
his ends. Of the adroitness with which he could 
turn his own intentional misconstruction into an 
apparent fact, we take one instance which is all 
sufficient, because facts are stronger, though 
not so polished, than the figures of rhetoric. 
In subsection No. 1, Hamilton says: ''* * * 
suspected on strong grounds of having corruptly 
served the views of the Holland Company in the 
capacity of a member of our legislature. '^ In 
explanation of this act of Burr I quote again the 
foot-note appended by the editor of The Cen- 
tury Magazine: ^'He co-operated in obtaining a 
law to permit aliens to hold and convey lands. ' ' 
In other words. Burr tried by legislation to offer 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 41 

inducements to the very best men to come and 
settle in this country. The law was wise, patri- 
otic in its purpose, and very judicious in its 
means. 

A man so cowardly as to write such a confi- 
dential letter could conceive and undertake any 
enterprise save one that would compel him to 
lead an honest life or oblige him to tell the 
truth. The letter itself furnishes indisputable 
evidence — it is self-evident — that its source, its 
cause, is envy. And all men Imow how soon, how 
quickly, how permanently, envy curdles into 
hate. Envy is the father of that form of cow- 
ardice which often shows itself with courageous 
freedom in words confidentially spoken. 

To attempt a critical analysis of all the va- 
rious statements in this remarkable letter, — all 
the more remarkable because written to a justice 
of the United States Supreme Court, — or to dis- 
cuss in its fullness the principle of morals in- 
volved in it, would be simply to lay bare the pov- 
erty of the English language to express one's 
thoughts when one's moral nature is assailed 
and shocked by statements made in a way so 
infamous, so cowardly. What purpose could 
Hamilton effect, what advantage could he se- 
cure, what injury could he do to Burr, by a con- 



42 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

fidential letter to a federal judge 1 Did lie expect 
Judge Kutledge to yield to the temptation to 
give it publicity, that Hamilton himself might 
escape its responsibility by asserting that the 
judge had betrayed a confidence! He ought to 
have remembered that there was not one drop 
of blood such as his in Judge Eutledge^s veins. 

Take each statement as it is written. Each is 
stated, and is intended to be received, as a fact. 
Nothing may be added to a fact. The orna- 
violent language. To the eighth page of the 
beauty, but seldom increases the power, of a 
statement. 

In his vindication Hamilton poured out upon 
Eeynolds and two other men, Clingman and 
Fraunces, the vials of his wrath, expressed in 
violent language. To the eighth page of the 
vindication he appended this footnote: 

*' Would it be believed after all this, that Mr. 
Jefferson, Vice-President of the United States, 
would write to this Fraunces friendly letters? 
Yet such is the fact as will be seen in the Ap- 
pendix, Nos. XLIV and XLV.^' 

Would it have been believed that Alexander 
Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, would 
have vindicated his betrayal of his honor and 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 43 

his treachery to his wife by his adulterous amour 
with Mrs. Keynolds? ^*Yet such is the fact as 
will be seen,'' in this vindication. 

Why go out of the line of his argument, evas- 
ive and inconclusive as it is, to speak in this 
way of Mr. Jefferson ? What had he to do with 
Hamilton's connection with Mrs. Eeynolds, or 
with her husband, or with Clingman, or with 
Hamilton's troubles with Fraunces? With the 
scent and the nature of a bloodhound Hamilton 
pursued the man who did his own thinking and 
had the courage to reach a conclusion different 
from his. When his thoughts became crystal- 
lized into acts he discharged his calumnies and 
slanders in confidential words, spoken or writ- 
ten, with the accuracy and directness of riflemen 
shooting at a target. 

The act of writing letters to Fraunces by Jef- 
ferson was dishonorable because Jefferson was 
Vice-President of the United States! Hamil- 
ton's treachery to his amiable and loving wife 
was a less ^^ heinous offence" in his eyes than a 
speculative venture in Treasury warrants, and 
his adulterous amour with Mrs. Eeynolds was 
*^only an indecorum" because Alexander Ham- 
ilton was Secretary of the Treasury of the 
United States. 

Consider the noble sentiments expressed in 



44 A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 

the preface to liis vindication and liis terrible 
and well-deserved strictures upon the Jacobin 
Scandal-Club, then consider the statements in 
his confidential letter to Judge Eutledge, his 
motives, his object! What can be, what will 
be, the judgment of every honest and impartial 
man in his estimate of Hamilton's moral nature, 
as a man, as a gentleman, and as a statesman? 
In what literature of any civilized country can 
another production be found to equal this vindi- 
cation — reflecting as it does the baseness of its 
author 1 How could any man have written such 
a letter, then assert a right to he admitted to the 
society of gentlemen 1 Only a coward could have 
written it. In using the word ^^ coward" in this 
connection I leave out of all consideration the 
courage that is in nearly all men, which is pro- 
duced by the influence of public opinion upon 
their minds, their lives, their conduct, and their 
characters. In this letter to Judge Eutledge 
Hamilton describes his true character. No one 
may misread it. As shown by it, his baseness, 
his depravity, his cowardice, is without a par- 
allel in the annals of any country, ancient or 
modern. 



CHAPTER III 

I do not purpose to make any defense of 
Aaron Burr nor attempt a refutation of the 
charges that were brought against him, mali- 
cious, malignant, and malevolent as they were. 
Alexander Hamilton himself must have known 
them to be untrue. None of Burr's enemies has 
yet asserted, nor even hinted, that he was ever 
in any way disloyal to his wife during her life- 
time. Nor in all my reading, extensive and im- 
partial as it has been, have I discovered any con- 
fidential letters written by him solely to indulge 
and gratify that malignant hate that is bred in 
the womb of Envy, and that may be bred no- 
where else. 

Home life is a true test of character, home 
manners the test of a gentleman. 

To the impartial mind the feeling involun- 
tarily comes up that, succumbing to Alexander 
Hamilton's magnetism of character and to his 
fascinating manners, Mrs. Reynolds seduced 
herself while Hamilton yielded the needed con- 
solations due to her in her unfortunate condi- 
tion. His conduct consequently was only **an 
indecorum." That it may be shown that this 

45 



46 A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 

opinion is not unjust to him, that it is not based 
on a desire to deal unfairly, nor to put a forced 
construction upon his statements, I quote from 
his vindication that I may prove the truth of 
this judgment upon his conduct : 

Page 20 : ^ ' All the appearances of violent at- 
tachment, and of agonizing distress at the idea 
of a relinquishment, were played off with a most 
imposing art. This, though it did not make me 
entirely the dupe of the plot, yet kept me in a 
state of irresolution. My sensibility, xjerhaps 
my vanity, admitted the possibility of a real 
fondness ; and led me to adopt the plan of a grad- 
ual discontinuance rather than of a sudden in- 
terruption, as least calculated to give pain, if a 
real partiality existed. * * * 

*'Mrs. Reynolds, on the other hand, employed 
every effort to keep up my attention and visits.'' 

Page 31 : ' ' The variety of shapes which this 
woman could assume was endless." 

Then, immediately following, he gives the 
points and statements between her and a gentle- 
man whose name he is not at liberty to give to 
the public. ^^His name would evince that he is 
an impartial witness,'' he says. ^^And though 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 47 

I am not permitted to make a public use of it, 
1 am permitted to refer any gentleman to the 
perusal of his letter in the hands of William 
Bingham, Esquire/' 

This statement is an illustration of a distinc- 
tion without a diiference. Hamilton could not 
make a name known to tlie public, but his friend, 
William Bingham, Esquire, is permitted to do it 
for him, in his name. These extracts refer to 
the condition of his connection with this woman 
long after he had, according to his vindication, 
discovered that his intrigue with her was well 
known to her husband, and after Clingman was 
a particeps criminis in the whole affair. 

Did any other man of such acknowledged in- 
fluence in public life, and of such high recognized 
position in genteel society, with wife and chil- 
dren, ever before or since confess to the public 
in print such weakness of character, such vacilla- 
tion of judgment, and such puerile inability to 
show any manhood, any self-respect, or any 
courage, physical, moral, or mental! Indeed 
has he drawn his own picture, painted in fade- 
less colors. 

A careful study of his vindication fails to 
disclose a single statement in it, in positive 



48 A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 

terms, that lie did not speculate in government 
warrants. He makes an elaborate argument 
to disprove his guilt, but nowhere asserts in 
positive words that he engaged in no specula- 
tive venture. In his argument he makes these 
points : First, that Eeynolds was a base rascal, 
an obscure, an unimportant, and a profligate 
man ; Second, that he would have selected as his 
intermediate agent one more worthy of his con- 
fidence; Third, page 11, *'It is very extraor- 
dinary, if the head of the money department of 
a country, being unprincipled enough to sacrifice 
his trust and his integrity, could not have con- 
trived objects of profit sufficiently large to have 
engaged the co-operation of men of far greater 
importance than Eeynolds, and with whom there 
could have been due safety, and should have 
been drawn to the necessity of unkennelling such 
a reptile to be the instrument of his cupidity. '' 
It was not possible, unless the men of ^^far 
greater importance than Reynolds'* had been 
just as dishonest and serviceable as the reptile 
he unkenneled, to be the instrument of his cu- 
pidity. Even in this day of universal corrup- 
tion, state and federal, one may not find such 
men of ^ ^ far greater importance than Reynolds ' ' 
to do such work — such disreputable jobbery. 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 49 

As an example of Hamilton's denial of the 
grave charge of speculation, I quote an extract 
referring to the interview had with him on this 
subject by Venable, Muhlenberg, and Monroe. 

Page 28: ^^I deny absolutely, as alleged by 
the editor of the publication in question, that I 
intreated a suspension of the communication to 
the President, or that from the beginning to the 
end of the inquiry, I asked any favour or indul- 
gence whatever, and that I discovered any symp- 
toms different from that of a proud conscious- 
ness of innocence/' 

This statement is simply an argument — not 
a statement of a fact. Such statements can be, 
and are, made by criminals when discussing the 
charges against them when they desire to con- 
ceal their guilt from the attorney employed to 
defend them. Every lawyer that defends crimi- 
nals is acquainted with such subterfuges, and 
such conduct is invariably considered as evi- 
dence of guilt, unless coupled with indisputable 
proof of innocence or positive disproof of the 
charge based on the assertion that the accused 
did not commit the act charged, and is treated 
as such. 



50 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

I turn to Hamilton's interview with Venable, 
Monroe, and Muhlenberg. This interview re- 
lates to the charges against Alexander Hamil- 
ton, the talk of all circles, social and political, of 
that time. 

Page 27 : ^ ' Mr. Muhlenberg and Mr. Venable, 
in particular, manifested a degree of sensibility 
on the occasion. Mr. Monroe was more cold but 
entirely explicit. ' ' 

But subsequently it seems that Mr. Monroe 
received other information that possibly justi- 
fied him in thinking that Hamilton was not en- 
tirely innocent. It does not appear from the 
vindication that in this interview Hamilton 
made to these gentlemen a positive assertion 
that he had not engaged in speculations in gov- 
ernment warrants. He simply argues the ques- 
tion of his innocence, as he does all through the 
devious course of his argument. 

Page 27 : ^^I insisted upon going through the 
whole, and did so. The result was a full and un- 
equivocal acknowledgment on the part of the 
three gentlemen of perfect satisfaction with the 
explanation and expressions of regret at the 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 51 

trouble and embarrassment which had been oc- 
casioned to me/^ 

Pages 28, 29 : ''Thus the affair remained till 
the pamphlets No. V and VI of the History of 
the United States for 1796 appeared, with the 
exception of some dark whispers which were 
communicated to me by a friend in Virginia, and 
to which I replied by a statement of what had 
passed. 

''When I saw No. V though it was evidence 
of a base infidelity somewhere, yet firmly be- 
lieving that nothing more than a want of due 
care was chargeable upon either of the three 
gentlemen who had made the inquiry, I imme- 
diately wrote to each of them a letter of which 
No. XXV is a copy, in full confidence that their 
answer would put the whole business at rest. 
I ventured to believe, from the appearances on 
their part at closing our former interview on 
the subject, that their answers would have been 
both cordial and explicit. 

"I acknowledge that I was astonished when 
I came to read in the pamphlet No. VI the con- 
clusion of document No. V, containing the equiv- 
ocal phrase, 'We left him under an impression 
our suspicions ivere removed/ which seemed to 
imply that this had been a mere piece of manage- 



52 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

ment, and that the impression given me had not 
been reciprocal. The appearance of duplicity 
incensed me ; but resolving to proceed with cau- 
tion and moderation, I thought the first proper 
step was to inquire of the gentlemen whether 
the paper was genuine. A letter was written 
for this purpose a copy of which I have mis- 
laid.'' 

With his character involved, he mislaid this 
letter, or its copy. Marvelous negligence in a 
gentleman who was so sensitive about his honor 
that he considered a speculation in Treasury 
warrants a more heinous offense than an adul- 
terous connection with a woman that he took 
into his home for illegal enjoyment, involving 
treachery to his wife and a betrayal of his mar- 
riage vow! One was only an indecorum, while 
the other a crime. 

Before making any extracts from the docu- 
ments referred to and from the letters which 
passed between these gentlemen, I shall make 
some quotations from the vindication imme- 
diately following his references : 

Page 33: *^But it is observed that the dread 
of the disclosure of an enormous connection was 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 53 

not a sufficient cause for my humility, and that 
1 had nothing to lose as to my reputation for 
chastity concerning which the world had fixed 
a previous opinion. 

^^I shall not enter into the question what was 
the previous opinion entertained of me in this 
particular — nor how well founded, if it was in- 
deed such as it is represented to have been. It 
is sufficient to say that there is a wide difference 
between vague rumours and suspicions and the 
evidence of a positive fact — no man not indeli- 
cately unprincipled, with the state of manners 
in this country, would be willing to have a con- 
jugal infidelity fixed upon him with positive cer- 
tainty — he would know that it would justly in- 
jure him with a considerable and respectable 
portion of the society — and especially no man, 
tender of the happiness of an excellent wife 
could without extreme pain look forward to the 
affliction which she might endure from the dis- 
closure, especially a public disclosure, of the 
fact. Those best acquainted with the interior 
of my domestic life will best appreciate the force 
of such a consideration upon me.'* 

This last sentence contains a very tactful and 
delicate reference to those rapturous moments 



54 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

of ecstatic happiness when he and Mrs. Eey- 
nolds, in the absence of his wife, made Mrs. 
Hamilton's home the temporary dwelUng of a 
woman of whose charms and fascinations the 
gentleman desired a monopoly. 

Why is it that his most far-fetched and un- 
necessary allusion to Mrs. Eeynolds always 
brings a reference of his excellent wife? Did 
each woman have her several and distinct ex- 
cellencies of character and conduct, that to men- 
tion one always should bring to his mind the 
other ? 

If so ^^ tender of the happiness of an excellent 
wife'' and conscious of the extreme pain a pub- 
he disclosure of his debauchery would bring to 
her ''throbbing and palpitating bosom," why 
make it? What light did it throw on his inno- 
cence in these speculations? Did his publicly 
acknowledged guilt in the one case prove his 
innocence in the other? His connection with 
Mrs. Reynolds, disreputable and debauched as 
he was, did not disprove his speculative venture 
with Mr. Reynolds, dishonorable as it was. He 
admitted the former — put in into print and pub- 
lished it to the world. He published an argu- 
ment to prove his innocence ; but it is an argu- 
ment, and nothing more. 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 55 

Page 33 : ^ ^ The truth was, that in both rela- 
tions and especially the last, I dreaded ex- 
tremely a disclosure — and was willing to make 
large sacrifices to avoid it. ' ' 

Page 34: ''Candid men will derive strong 
evidence of my innocence and delicacy from the 
reflection, that under circumstances so peculiar, 
the culprits were compelled to give a real and 
substantial equivalent for the relief which they 
obtained from a department over tvhich I pre- 
sided/' 

What was the real and substantial equivalent 
which they gave for the relief obtained from 
Hamilton's department! If true it be that his 
connection with Mrs. Reynolds was in a great 
measure due to the connivance of her husband, 
this amour sinks into an ordinary commercial 
transaction, stale, flat, and unprofitable in all 
its uses. He simply strikes a balance between 
his speculative losses with the husband and the 
rapturous moments of enjoyments of the wife. 

Pages 35, 36: ''Relative character and the 
written documents must still determine. These 
could decide without it, and they were relied 
upon. But could it be expected, that I should 



56 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

SO debase myself as to think it necessary to my 
vindication to be confronted with a person such 
as Eeynolds? Could I have borne to suffer my 
veracity to be exposed to the humiliating com- 
petition 1 ' ^ 

Hamilton was utterly unconscious that his 
very statements about his intimate relations 
with Mrs. Eeynolds at his own home and else- 
where, to be found in his vindication, destroy 
all the value and influence of ^'relative char- 
acter. ' ' He had already debased himself by his 
business transactions with her husband. It was 
no longer a question of his veracity. His inter- 
view with the gentlemen that are brought into 
this vindication disclosed that there was no 
question of his veracity. The issue was his per- 
sonal and official integrity. Hamilton has not 
in this vindication vindicated either — ^much less 
both. 

In his vindication he alludes to his letter No. 
XXV, dated July 5, 1797, from which I quote : 

*^They [certain attacks on Mr. Monroe] are 
ungrateful, because he displayed on an occasion, 
that will be mentioned immediately, the greatest 
lenity to Mr. Alexander Hamilton, the prime 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 57 

mover of the Federal party. * * * The pe- 
culiar nature of this transaction renders it im- 
possible that you should not recollect it in all 
parts and that your own declaration to me at 
the time contradicts absolutely the construc- 
tion which the editor of the pamphlet puts upon 
the affair.'^ 

Was Mr. Monroe the editor of the pamphlet 'I 
If he was not, how could he be held responsible 
for his construction of it? He was seeking: an 
explanation. The letter continues: 



'iD 



^^And I shall rely upon your delicacy that the 
manner of doing it will be such that one gentle- 
man has a right to expect from another — espe- 
cially as you must be sensible that the present 
appearance of the papers is contrary to the 
course which was understood between us to be 
proper and includes a dishonourable infidelity 
somewhere — I am far from attributing it to 
either of the three gentlemen; yet the suspicion 
naturally falls on some agent made use of by 
them. ' ' 

Hamilton is far from attributing it to any of 
the three. Yet he suspects each, and all three 



58 A STUDY IX ALEXANDEK HAMILTON 

made use of an agent. Another of his distinc- 
tions without a difference. Upon the ground 
of a mere suspicion of conduct, which he dis- 
claims attributing to any of them, Hamilton de- 
mands an explanatory statement from Mr. Mon- 
roe of conduct which he, Hamilton, does not 
attribute to Monroe. The question inevitably 
follows, Upon what ground could Hamilton, 
claiming to be a gentleman, make this demand 
of Mr. Monroe! The real object of this letter 
will be shown in a short time. I quote from Mr. 
Muhlenberg's reply: 

Page xxxvii : ' ' At the same time permit me to 
remind you of your declaration also made in 
the presence of Mr. Wolcott that the infor- 
mation and letters in our possession justified 
the suspicions we entertained before your ex- 
planation took place, and that our conduct to- 
wards you in this business was satisfactory. 
Having no share or agency whatever in the pub- 
lication or comments you are pleased to cite I 
must beg to be excused from making any re- 
marks thereon.'' 

I quote from Mr. Venable's letter: 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 59 

Page xxxviii: ^^I have endeavoured to recol- 
lect what passed at the close of the interview 
which took place with respect to this transac- 
tion ; it was said I believe by us in general terms 
that we were satisfied with the explanation that 
had been given, that we regretted the necessity 
that we had been subjected to in being obliged to 
make the inquiry, as well as the trouble and 
anxiety it had occasioned you, and on your part 
you admitted in general terms that the business 
as presented to us bore such a doubtful aspect 
as to justify the inquiry, and that the manner 
had been satisfactory to you. 

^'I have now to express my surprise at the 
contents of a letter published yesterday in Pen- 
no's paper, in which you endeavour to impute 
to party motives the part which I have had in 
this business and endeavour to connect me with 
the releasement of persons, committed as you 
say for heinous crimes/^ 

Then, giving the real facts as to Eeynolds and 
Clingman, which are in substance the same as 
those stated by Hamilton himself, Mr. Venable 
continues : 

'^If you will take the trouble to examine the 



60 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

transaction you will find this statement correct, 
and yon cannot be insensible of the injury you 
do me when you say, this was an attempt to re- 
lease themselves from imprisonment by favour 
of party spirit, and that I was one of the per- 
sons resorted to on that ground. I appeal to 
your candour, and ask you if any part of my 
conduct in this whole business has justified such 
an imputation.'' 

Pages xl and xli (from a joint letter by Muh- 
lenberg and Monroe): *^We think proper to 
observe that as we had no agency in or knowl- 
edge of the publication of these papers till they 
appeared, so of course we could have none in the 
comments that were made on them. 

[Then, referring to the object and demand 
of information, they answer:] 

^^ * * * a]2(j lo which we readily reply, 
that the impression which we left on your mind 
as stated in that number, was that which rested 
on our own, and which was that the explanation 
of the nature of your connection with Eeynolds 
which you then gave removed the suspicions we 
had before entertained of your being connected 
with him in speculation. Had not this been the 
case we should certainly not have left the im- 
pression on your mind, nor should we have de- 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 61 

sisted from the plan we had contemplated in the 
commencement of the inquiry, of laying the 
papers before the President of the U. States." 

There the shoe was pinching. Washington 
was then President, to whom the matters of that 
interview were not communicated. Hamilton 
resigned his secretaryship the last of January, 
1795, — his conduct was a prudent forecast, verg- 
ing on the certainty of a prophetic vision. The 
vindication was not published until 1797. There 
follows an important statement in this letter: 

^^We cannot conclude this letter without ex- 
pressing our surprise at the contents of a paper 
in the Gazette of the United States of the 8th 
instant, which states that the proceedings in 
the inquiry in question were the contrivance of 
two very profligate men who sought to obtain 
their liberation from prison by the favour of 
party spirit\ You will readily recollect that one 
of these men, Mr. Clingman, was never impris- 
oned for any crime alleged against him by the 
department of the Treasury, and that the other, 
Mr. Eeynolds, was upon the point of being re- 
leased and was actually released and without 
our solicitation or even with, by virture of an 



62 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

agreement made with him by that department 
before the inquiry began.'' 

In a letter from Monroe (page xliv) he says 
it was impossible to trace back all the impres- 
sions on his mind at the different periods, occu- 
pied as he was with other concerns; ^'but I well 
remember that on entering the one which bears 
my single signature, altho' I was surprised at 
the communication given, yet I neither meant to 
give or imply any opinion of my own as to its 
contents. I simply entered the communication 
as I received it, reserving to myself the liberty 
to form an opinion upon it at such future time 
as I found convenient, paying due regard to all 
the circumstances connected with it. ' ' 

In letter No. XXXVII Hamilton says that 
Monroe's letter was unsatisfactory, then writes : 

^'It appears to me liable to this inference that 
the information of Clingman had revived the 
suspicions which my explanation had removed. 
This would include the very derogatory suspi- 
cion, that I had concerted with Eeynolds not only 
the fabrication of all the letters and documents 
under his hand but also the forgery of the let- 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 63 

ters produced as those of Mrs. Eeynolds — since 
these last unequivocally contradict the pretence 
communicated by Clingman. I therefore re- 
quest you to say whether the inference be in- 
tended.^' 

Mr. Monroe replied in substance just what he 
stated in his letter last quoted. 

I quote from Hamilton's letter in answer: 

Page xlv: ^^In my last letter to you I pro- 
posed a simple and direct question, to which I 
had hoped an answer equally simple and direct.'' 
[After discussing Clingman, he concludes in 
these words:] *'To have given or intended to 
give the least sanction or credit after all that 
was known to you, to the mere assertion of either 
of the three persons Clingman, Reynolds or his 
wife would have betrayed a disposition toivards 
me which if it appeared to exist would merit 
epithets the severest that I could apply." 

To which Mr. Monroe replied, in part as fol- 
lows: 

Page xlvii: ^*It is proper to observe that in 
the explanation you gave, you admitted all the 



64 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

facts upon which our opinion was founded, 
but yet accounted for them, and for your con- 
nection with Eeynolds upon another principle. 
'Tis proper also to observe that we admitted 
your explanation upon the faith of your own 
statement, and upon the documents you pre- 
sented, though I do not recollect they were 
proved or that proof was required of them. 

* ^ You will remember that in this interview in 
which we acknowledged ourselves satisfied with 
the explanation you gave, we did not bind our- 
selves not to hear further information on the 
subject, or even not to proceed further in case 
we found it our duty to do so.'' 

After the two had exchanged other letters of 
similar import, Mr. Monroe wrote : 

Pages Ivi and Ivii : ^^I have stated to you that 
I had no wish to do you a personal injury. 
The several explanations which I have made 
accorded with truth and my ideas of propriety. 
Therefore I need not repeat them. If these do 
not yield you satisfaction, I can give no other, 
unless called on in a way which for the illustra- 
tion of truth, I wish to avoid, but which I am 
ever ready to meet. This is what I meant by 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 65 

that part of my letter which you say you do not 
understand. ' ' 

To which Hamilton replied, undertaking, in a 
circuitous way, to blame Monroe with the pres- 
ent situation of the affair. Concluding, he says : 

Page Ivii: ^^On the supposition that it so in- 
tended, I have authorized Major Jackson to 
communicate with you and to settle time and 
place." 

In reply Monroe said, page Ivii: ^^I do not 
clearly understand the import of yours of the 
4th instant and therefore desire an explana- 
tion. With this view I will give an explanation 
of mine which preceded. ' ' 

Seeing no cause why he should send a chal- 
lenge to Hamilton, it was not Monroe's intention 
to provoke one by anything in his letters. He 
refers Hamilton to Col. Burr, to make the ar- 
rangements suitable to the occasion. 

To Monroe's letter Hamilton replied as fol- 
lows : 

^ ^ Sir, The intention of my letter of the 4th in- 



66 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

stant, as itself imports, was to meet and close 
with an advance towards a personal interview, 
which it appeared to me had been made by you. 
^^From the tenor of your reply of the 6th, 
which disavows the inference I had drawn, any 
further step on my part, as being inconsistent 
with the ground I have heretofore taken, would 
be improper." 

An impotent conclusion to his amour with 
Mrs. Eeynolds and to his speculative venture 
with her husband ! To the most impartial mind 
the picture which Hamilton draws of his own 
character is one so unconscious of his own base 
tergiversations throughout his vindication, that 
it involuntarily recalled the rough doggerel 
lines I often heard in my youth : 

"It wired in and wired out, 
And left the mind still in doubt, 
Whether the snake that made the track 
Was going south or coming back." 

In the quotations, so numerous as they are, I 
have tried to be just, impartial, and judicial, — 
setting down nothing in malice nor prejudice. 
From the statements in his vindication and the 
letters in his appendix to it, it is clear that Alex- 
ander Hamilton never conceived, and from his 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 67 

moral nature was utterably unable to conceive, 
much less to appreciate, the three great out- 
standing facts in all human affairs — no man ever 
told a lie and killed it ; no man ever committed 
a dishonest act and so covered it that it was not 
brought to light at some future time; no man 
ever perpetrated a fraud and destroyed all the 
evidences of it. Why did Hamilton drop out 
of all consideration Venable and Muhlenberg? 
All three (Monroe, Venable, and Muhlenberg) 
took part in the interview, and substantially 
agree as to what was said and done by Hamilton 
and by them. Was Hamilton in doubt about 
Monroe ^s courage and hoped to win again the 
confidence of the public by a display of bravery 
which Monroe would shrink from meeting ? The 
other two were equally involved in the subse- 
quent events. I can offer no solution of this 
mystery. 

In justice to the subject of this writing, let us 
take a glance at history contemporaneous with 
Hamilton, which I shall do in my next chapter. 



CHAPTER IV 

Tliis study has been confined exclusively to 
the vindication until now. In glancing at the 
history of Hamilton's time I desire again to 
mention the dates at which this trouble began. 
Hamilton first met Mrs. Reynolds ''some time 
in the summer of the year 1791.'' He plastered 
lier husband's wounded honor twice — December 
22d, the plaster costing him $600 ''on account of 
a sum of one thousand dollars due to me" (Rey- 
nolds), and January 3rd, 1791, the plaster cost- 
ing him $400 "in full of all demands." Both 
plasters were applied fully six months before 
Hamilton first met Mrs. Reynolds. The inter- 
view between Hamilton and Monroe, Venable, 
and Muhlenberg occurred in December, 1792. 
Hamilton resigned his secretaryship the last of 
December, 1795. Callender published his two 
books in 1797, described as a History of the 
United States for 1796, the last, or No. VI, as it 
is usually called in these documents, some time 
in the fall of that year, as the preface bears date 
of July 17, 1797. The vindication was written 
in refutation of the charges contained in Gal- 
lender's history, especially those contained in 

68 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDEK HAMILTON 69 

No. VI, SO the vindication was published after 
July, 1797, more than six years after Hamil- 
ton's first tryst with Mrs. Reynolds. 

In the intervals between these dates James 
Reynolds disappeared, and the inference justi- 
fied by the surrounding circumstances is that 
he disappeared between the interview in De- 
cember, 1792, and his resignation in December, 
1795. The real cause of this mysterious disap- 
pearance has not yet been discovered, but one 
fact has been made public by Hamilton's vindi- 
cation and the interviews and the Callender 
book No. VI — that Reynolds disappeared that 
Hamilton's official honor might be protected, 
and possibly that Hamilton might be saved from 
a criminal prosecution. No history, no reminis- 
cence, no memoir of those times has ever dis- 
closed to the American public the bitterness and 
the hatred that gave life and venom to the po- 
litical strife of those days as do these books, 
No. V and No. VI, which were given to the world 
as history. 

I quote from the preface to No. VI : 

*^ When the fifth number of this book was pub- 
lished, Mr. Alexander Hamilton printed, in Mr. 
Fenno's gazette, a denial of his connection with 



70 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

Eeynolds. He has now come from New York 
to complete a satisfactory statement. Like the 
pot whitewashing the kettle, he has already re- 
ceived from Mr. Wolcott a certificate of his vir- 
tue. He is, at present, also soliciting Mr. Mon- 
roe and Mr. Muhlenberg, on both of whom he 
had heaped mountains of calumny. Mr. Hamil- 
ton entreats them, to attest his innocence, that is 
to say, their belief of his having debauched Mrs. 
Reynolds." 

Alexander Hamilton was furnishing not only 
topics for social gossip, but subjects for dis- 
cussion in commercial as well as in political 
circles. I now desire to call attention to some 
letters published in the vindication and in Cal- 
lender's history, which letters supposedly were 
written by Eeynolds. I will take a short letter 
from each publication, copying them exactly as 
they are printed : 

From the vindication, page 21 : 

Philadelphia 7th, April 1792. 

Sir. 

**I am sorry to inform you my setivation is 
such. I am indebted to a man in this town about 
45 dollars which he will wate no longer on me. 
now sir I am sorrey to be troubleing you So 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 71 

off en. which if you Can Oblige me with this to 
day. you will do me infenate service, that will 
pay Nearly all I owe in this town except yourself. 
I have some property on the North Eiver which 
I have Wrote to my Brother sell which as soon 
as it Come in my hands. I pay you every shil- 
ling with the strictest Justice you Oblige me 
with, the inclose is the Eeceipt. for the amount 

^'I am sir with due Regard, your humble ser- 
vant James Reynolds. 

^ ^ Alexr. Hamilton Esqr. ' ' 

Examine the spelling, the use of capital letters 
in the middle of a sentence where they are not 
correct, and the misuse of words in the letter. 
Can it be possible that Reynolds was so igno- 
rant, illiterate and so uneducated as this letter 
indicates? Reynolds disappeared in a myste- 
rious manner, at an unexpected moment, shortly 
after this letter is dated. 

I copy a letter written by Reynolds from the 
Callender history, No. VI, page 221 : 

* ^ Thursday one o ^clock 

^aSth December 1792 
^ * My dear Mr. Clingman : 

* ^ I hope I have not forfeited your friendship, 
the last night's conversation, don't think any- 



72 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

thing of it, for I was not myself. I know I have 
treated * * * friend ill, and too well I am 
convinced [here about three lines are torn out] 
to have satisfaction from his at all events, and 
you onely I trust too. I Avill see you this evening. 
He has offered to furnish me and Mrs. Reynolds 
with money to carry us off. If I will go, he will 
see that Mrs. Reynolds has money to follow me, 
and as for Mr. Francis, he sas he will make him 
swear back what he has said, and will turn him 
out of office. This is all I can say till I see you. 

^^I am, dear Clingman, believe me, forever 
your sincere friend, 

^^ James Reynolds. 

'^Mt. Jacob Clingman.'' 

Give to these letters a just and impartial com- 
parison. Did the same Reynolds write both let- 
ters? If so, point to the internal evidence that 
proves it other than the name signed to both. 
If he wrote them both, what object did he have 
in exhibiting in the letter to Hamilton such igno- 
rance — a lack of even ordinary common school 
education? Knowing that Reynolds was gone, 
no one knew where, never to return, did Hamil- 
ton forge this letter to furnish internal evidence 
that he was giving a description full and accu- 



A STUDY IN^ ALEXANDER HAMILTON 73 

rate of the man's character when he called him a 
reptile and a rascal? 

If this inference be not justified by the facts, 
why did Eeynolds change his style, his language, 
his rhetoric, and his spelling when he wrote to 
Clingman 1 The letters ^ * sas ' ' are evidently in- 
tended for the word "says,'' and it is just as 
evidently a misprint, for he uses the same word 
in the second line following and spells it cor- 
rectly. 

The letter to Hamilton, beyond all dispute, is 
a forgery — a forgery by Alexander Hamilton, 
who knew, as a lawyer, the impossibility of any 
one proving it to be such. 

These two letters never were written by the 
same man. Callender could have had no motive, 
no reason, no gain, no protection, from the for- 
gery of the letter. Hamilton had — his charac- 
ter, his social position, his political influence, in 
fact, everything near and dear to him was at 
stake, if, indeed, there was anything or anybody 
near enough to him to be dear, or dear enough 
to him to be near. Reynolds was gone. He 
could not be suborned as a witness, and Hamil- 
ton therefore was obliged to furnish positive, 
undisputed internal evidence that he, Hamilton, 
would not have employed such a reptile and a 



74 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

rascal in his speculative ventures in Treasury- 
warrants. 

I could give other letters written by Eeynolds 
to substantiate this charge. There is a state- 
ment dated Philadelphia, 15th December, 1792, 
signed by James Monroe, Abraham Venable, 
and F. A. Muhlenberg, published in Callender's 
history, which I cannot find in the vindication, 
although Hamilton pretends to have published 
in the vindication every document relating to 
its subject. It is indeed a very important docu- 
ment, signed as it is by all three, and therefore 
the individual statement of each as well as their 
joint statement. 1 quote from Callender : 

No. VI, pp. 216, 217, 218: ^^That Eeynolds, 
at the same time, told him [referring to a con- 
versation between Clingman and Eeynolds 1 he 
had been received by Mr. Hamilton, the morning 
of that day, when they parted, about sunrise. 
That he was extremely agitated, ivalking hack- 
ward and forward the room, and striking alter- 
nately, his forehead and his thigh; observing 
to him, that he had enemies at work, hut was 
ivilling to meet them, on fair ground, and re- 
quested him not to stay long, lest it might he 
noticed. 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 75 

^^Mr. Clingman also informs us, that he re- 
ceived a note from Mr. Woleot, to meet him, on 
Friday morning, at half past nine (which note 
we have). That he attended, and had an inter- 
view with him, in presence of Mr. Hamilton; 
when he was strictly examined by both, respect- 
ing the persons, who were inquiring into the mat- 
ter, and their object; that he told Mr. Hamilton, 
he had been possessed of his notes to Reynolds, 
and had given them up to these gentlemen : and 
to which, he replied, he had done very wrong. 
That he also told Mr. Hamilton of the letter he 
had received from Reynolds, since his enlarge- 
ment, mentioning that he (Mr. Hamilton) would 
make Francis swear back what he had said ; and 
to which Mr. Hamilton replied, he would make 
him unsay any falsity he had declared. 

^'Mr. Hamilton said, Reynolds was a villain, 
a rascal, and he supposed, would swear to any- 
thing. 

''Mr. Woleot said, that unless Clingman used 
the same candour to him, that he had done to 
Clingman, he should not consider himself bound. 

''Mr. Hamilton observed, he had had some 
transaction with Re^molds, which he had before 
mentioned, as well as Clingman remembers, to 
Mr. Woleot, and need not go into detail. 



76 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

^^Mr. Clingman also informs us, that Eey- 
nolds told him, since his enlargement, that when 
he was about to set out to Virginia, on his last 
trip to buy up cash-claims of the Virginia line, 
he told Mr. Hamilton, that Mr. Hopkins would 
not pay upon those powers of attorney ; and to 
which he (Mr. Hamilton) replied, he would write 
to Hopkins, on the subject. 

^^Last night we waited on colonel Hamilton, 
when he informed us of a particular connection 
ivith Mrs. Reynolds: the period of its commence- 
ment, and circumstances attending it ; his visit- 
ing her at Inskeep's; the frequent supplies of 
money to her and her husband, on that account ; 
his duress by them from fear of a disclosure, 
and Ms anxiety to he relieved from it and them. 
To support this, he shewed a great number of 
letters from Eeynolds and herself, commencing 
early in 1791. He acknowledged all the letters 
in a disguised hand, in our possession, to he his. 
We left him under an impression, our suspicions 
were removed. He acknowledged our conduct 
toward him had been fair and liberal : he could 
not complain of it. He brought back all the 
papers, even his own notes, nor did he ask their 
destruction. 

^*He said, the dismission of the prosecution 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 77 

against the parties, Eeynolds and Clingman, 
had been in consideration of a surrender of a 
list of pay improperly obtained from his office, 
and by means of a person, who had it not in his 
power now to injure the department, intimating 
he meant Duer ; that he obtained this information 
from Eeynolds; owned that he had received a 
note from Eeynolds in the night, at the time 
stated in Mr. Clingman 's paper, and that he had 
likewise seen him in the morning following: 
said he had never seen Eeynolds before he came 
to this place; and that the statement in Mr. 
Clingman 's paper, in that respect was correct. 
^^ January 2nd, 1793 [This statement, imme- 
diately following the one just quoted is signed 
by James Monroe alone.] Mr. Clingman called 
on me this evening, and mentioned, that he had 
been apprised of Mr. Hamilton's vindication, by 
Mr. Wolcot, a day or two after our interview 
with him. He farther observed to m.e, that he 
communicated the same to Mrs. Eeynolds, who 
appeared much shocked at it, and ive2:)t immod- 
erately. That she denied the imputation, and 
declared, that it had been a fabrication of colonel 
Hamilton, and that her husband had joined in it, 
ivho had told her so, and that he had given him 
receipts for money and written letters, so as to 



78 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

give countenance to the pretence. That lie was 
with colonel Hamilton, the day after he left the 
jail, when we supposed he was in Jersey. He 
was of opinion she was innocent, and that the de- 
fence was an imposition. ' ' 

I shall comment upon a few of the statements 
that Hamilton made. 

In the interview the subject of which is given 
in this extract: ^^To support this [referring 
to Hamilton's explanation], he shewed a great 
number of letters from Eeynolds and herself 
commencing early in 1791.'' 

He had surely forgotten this assertion, made 
to these gentlemen, when he said in his vindica- 
tion, published subsequently, that he first met 
Mrs. Eeynolds at his own home '^some time in 
the summer of the year 1791." 

This difference in dates may seem to be a 
small matter, but it is not. It goes far to prove 
that Hamilton always made his statements ac- 
cording to the necessity of the occasion. *'He 
acknowledged all the letters in a disguised hand, 
in our possession, to he his."*^ 

Why did he disguise his writing? Was it to 
escape his guilt, or to destroy its evidence ? Was 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 79 

it fear of detection and consequent exj)osure? 
What business was he engaged in, that it re- 
quired the protection of this cowardly subter- 
fuge? 

**Clingman also informs us, that Eeynolds 
told him, since his enlargement, that when he 
was about to set out to Virginia, on his last trip 
to buy up cash-claims of the Virginia line, he 
told Mr. Hamilton, that Hopkins would not pay 
upon those powers of attorney ; and to which he, 
(Mr. Hamilton) replied, he would write to Hop- 
kins, on the subject.'' 

Hamilton was then Secretary of the Treasury. 
Why should Eeynolds liave gone to him about 
Hopkins's opinion if Hamilton was not inter- 
ested in speculation and if his influence was not 
necessary to control Hopkins and ensure suc- 
cess to the venture? If Hamilton was not a 
partner in the speculation, his duty to his office 
and his country, to his official oath and his 
honor, required him to decline to interfere in 
Hopkins's discharge of his official duty. Rey- 
nolds could protect neither Hamilton nor his 
own interest in the venture without some in- 
fluence strong enough to change, or to annul, 
Hopkins's decision. If Hopkins should refuse 



80 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

payment of the claims when presented, Hamilton 
could not afford to issue an order for their pay- 
ment without producing trouble and his own ex- 
posure. It was certainly a very remarkable dis- 
closure as to some business matters between 
them. 

'^ * * * said, he had never seen Rey- 
nolds before he came to this place ; and that the 
statement in Mr. Clingman's paper, in that re- 
spect, was correct." 

What does this statement mean? In the vin- 
dication, published in 1797, Hamilton refers to 
frequent meetings between Reynolds and him 
in 1791, of which Mrs. Reynolds was the cause, 
and how, subsequent to that date, he went to 
Philadelphia. Then he says that he had never 
seen Reynolds until his arrival there. No one 
can fail fully to appreciate the significance of 
Hamilton's course in omitting from the vindi- 
cation this statement by these gentlemen. 

Hamilton denounced Reynolds as a low and 
profligate man, a rascal, a villain, a repile un- 
kenneled, and as an accomplice in Hamilton's 
adulterous amour with his, Reynolds's, wife. 
The world has seldom produced a human being 
so base as these epithets describe the character 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 81 

of Eeynolds to have been. But was there any 
intimacy between uncongenial natures beyond 
the relation produced by their speculative ven- 
tures; or, rather, do men so far apart in social 
and political life ever become so intimate as the 
copy of the note that follows would indicate, 
unless the tie is something more than the de- 
bauchery of the wife by the connivance of the 
husband and the use of that husband as a com- 
mercial broker! 

Callender, No. VI, page 19 : * ^ It is utterly out 
of my power I assure you, pon my honour, to 
comply with your request. Your note is re- 
turned. ' ^ 

Eeynolds evidently had asked for a loan. 

If their intimacy had not eliminated all social 
differences between them, upon what justifiable 
ground could such a note be written by Hamilton 
to one so far below him in rank as was Eeynolds ? 
It is observable that there is in the first letter 
not the slightest touch of official dignity nor per- 
sonal reserve. He is writing to a true, tried, and 
warm friend. There is in it a slight tinge of un- 
expressed regret, which ^^pon my honour" he 
does not wholly conceal, but he trusts that the 
intelligence of this dear friend will appreciate 



82 A STUDY IN AIjEXANDER HAMILTON 

the expression of regret the more deeply in that 
it is not revealed. 

Yet it seems that at this very time Hamilton 
wanted to get rid of both Mrs. Eeynolds and her 
husband, so *^ offered, if they would leave these 
parts, not to he seen here again, to give some- 
thing clever.'' 

What must have been Hamilton's pain and 
agony when he found that if he would clean his 
official character he would have to tear himself 
from the tender and loving embraces of his fasci- 
nating mistress? It has occurred to me, in the 
critical examination of this vindication and the 
Callender books, that Mrs. Hamilton must have 
been the most amiable, the most charitable, and 
the most angelic woman that had ever lived, 
and had fully and conscientiously accepted as 
true her husband's double standard of morals, 
in domestic as well as political affairs. She 
would be an excellent model for a statue to Char- 
ity, to be erected in some ideal hall of fame, or 
a statue to the domestic virtues. 

Hamilton was naturally vindictive. At times 
his temper was furious, although generally kept 
well under control when reflected by spoken 
words, which could be repeated, and to which at 
that day a certain personal responsibility was 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 83 

always attached. It was in liis confidential let- 
ters only that he poured out the vials of his 
wrath and gave ample room to his hate, his 
malice, and to his calumnies. It is inconceivable 
that such a man could have borne the treatment 
of which he complained from a rascal, a villain, 
and a reptile, yet have kept himself in such a 
Christian frame of mind — ready to forgive, 
ready to forget, if only the Eeynoldses would be 
gone. Yet, transient as this attachment to Mrs. 
Reynolds is asserted by him to have been, he put 
it in the balance against his official integrity, his 
personal honesty, and the confidence of the pub- 
lic. From the very hour that Mr. Monroe and 
his colleagues saw Reynolds Hamilton must have 
known that his honor, his standing, his reputa- 
tion, everything that is held dear by an honest 
man and a gentleman was at stake — except the 
charity of that loving wife. 

Upon what basis or proof has the charge of 
a speculative venture been made against Ham- 
ilton, Reynolds being used as his intermediate 
agent or broker 1 The financial condition of the 
country was such that many despaired of the 
Republic. The soldiers had not been paid; the 
creditors were clamoring for the payment of 
their debts ; the Government, in truth, was bank- 



84 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

rupt. It was the day of the speculator. Hamil- 
ton, Imowing better and more fully than any 
other man in the whole country, from his official 
position, the exact state of the Treasury, the 
amount of the public debt, and also the indebt- 
edness of the different States, concluded that 
with tact he could make his fortune without be- 
ing caught in the act. His amour with Mrs. 
Eeynolds suggested her husband to him as his 
broker, and when his connection with her became 
so close that it was discovered by her husband, 
he realized the risk that he was running in com- 
mitting with the husband a more heinous offense 
than an ''indecorum'' w^ith the wife. 

I take this extract from Callender, and make 
no excuse for its length : 

Callender, No. VI, pp. 224, 225: ''If we con- 
sider the magnitude of the object before them, 
it was higliJy commendable in the gentlemen con- 
cerned in these enquiries to trace the matter as 
closely as they did. The funding of certificates 
to the extent of perhaps thirty, or thirty- five 
millions of dollars, at eight times the price which 
the holders had actually paid for them, presents, 
in itself, one of the most egregious, the most 
impudent, the most oppressive, and the most 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 85 

provoking bubbles that ever burlesqued the leg- 
islative proceedings of any nation. The debt 
that could have been discharged for ten or fif- 
teen millions of dollars, was funded at forty 
millions. 

^^But as the universal suspicion and hatred 
which the formation of this mass had excited, 
might, at some future period, endanger its ex- 
istence, the assumption act was brought for- 
ward. This law incorporated into the form of 
stock those debts contracted by individual states 
during the war. Hence each of them became, 
for its own sake, interested in the support of 
public credit which implicated a riddance of the 
debt especially due by itself. Thus the certifi- 
cate funds were inseparably embodied with a 
j)owerful and popular ally, under the shelter 
of whose reputation they might hope for some 
degree of longevity. This artful measure was 
pushed through Congress by the same party, 
who funded the half-crown certificates at twenty 
shillings. But, even in this project, it is enter- 
taining to notice the blindness and precipitation 
of conscious guilt. The paper-jobbing junto 
were in such a hurry to shelter their speculations 
under the wings of the above assumption law, 
that they acted the measure in the most profli- 



SQ A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

gate or bungling manner which can be imagined. 
Take notice ! They pledged the public faith for 
twenty- two millions of dollars instead of eleven 
millions of dollars; for, the latter sum would 
have settled the claims, if a reasonable degree 
of time, of judgment, or of method had been em- 
joloyed upon it.'' 

This extract contains a true picture of the 
financial conditions of the times and of the trans- 
actions of men connected with them. A calm and 
impartial survey of all the parties involved in 
Hamilton's vindication can lead to but one con- 
clusion — that Reynolds was Hamilton's broker 
in his speculations in the public debt, which he, 
as Secretary of the Treasury, had funded. Mon- 
roe, Venable, and Muhlenberg, who had heard 
of these charges against Hamilton, had under- 
taken, from justifiable patriotic motives, to in- 
vestigate them. 

Hamilton explains. If innocent, and if con- 
scious that no dishonest or disreputable act as 
Secretary could be proved to have been done by 
him, why did he not at once confront his accusers 
with Reynolds and his wife? They had accused 
Hamilton of fraudulent conduct — dishonest offi- 
cial acts. Instead of taking the only course that 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 87 

would forever have closed tlie lips of gossip, of 
malice, of hatred and of enmity, he sent Rey- 
nolds and his wife away. 

Reynolds disappeared almost immediately 
after his discharge from prison. Did his wife 
have any reason to cause him to disappear? Did 
Monroe, Venable, Muhlenberg, or Clingman 
have any reason to desire his flight? Reynolds, 
and he alone, had in his possession the indisput- 
able evidences of Hamilton's guilt. Hamilton, 
and he alone, was deeply interested in Rey- 
nolds 's disappearance. Hamilton 's safety from 
disgrace, and possibly from a pubUc prosecu- 
tion, could be secured by Reynolds's flight only. 
To have been confronted with Reynolds, was to 
bring home to Hamilton his guilt, in all its con- 
sequences. His' name and his fair fame would 
have been gone forever. He would lose his page 
in history. Why was the mass of the corre- 
spondence between Hamilton and Reynolds by 
the desire of Hamilton committed to the flames! 
He was then Secretary of the Treasury; re- 
signed in 1795; Callender's books were pub- 
lished in 1797 ; the vindication was given to the 
public in the early fall of 1797. And what does 
Hamilton do in the argument so full of prevari- 
cations, evasions, and abusive calumnies upon 



88 A STUDY IN ALEXANDEK HAMILTON- 

all these people, coupled with Tinmanly insinua- 
tions, as to Monroe, Venable, and Muhlenberg? 
I answer my own question : — he simply took ref- 
uge behind the petticoats of Mrs. Eeynolds, 
knowing that James Eeynolds was too far away 
to protect those skirts from the cowardly use to 
which Hamilton had put them. 

I shall turn now to the history of the period 
as to Hamilton's stock- jobbing operations in 
government certificates. That history will be 
found in the Journal of William Maclay, senator 
for the short term from Pennsylvania, and was 
published by his grandson in 1890, some portions 
of wliich had been previously published, for dis- 
tribution among the members and friends of the 
family, and which had been jealously guarded 
from public scrutiny by Maclay 's descendants. 
This Journal, one of the most remarkable books 
in the whole range of English literature, begins 
April 24, 1789, and ends March 3, 1791, when 
Maclay retired from the senate. It establishes 
beyond a doubt that William Maclay was the 
true founder of the Democratic party. It ends 
before Hamilton began his connection with 
either Mrs. Eeynolds or her husband, and of the 
information that it contains neither Monroe, 
Venable, Muhlenberg, nor Callender had any 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 89 

knowledge. If such knowledge had been theirs, 
it would not have been necessary to have used 
Eeynolds as a witness, nor for Hamilton to have 
given publicity to his amour with Mrs. Reynolds. 

Page 177: ^'The business of yesterday (rec- 
ommendation for funding certificates of the pub- 
lic debt) will, I think, in all probability damn 
the character of Hamilton as a minister forever. 
It appears that a system of speculation for the 
engrossing certificates has been carrying on 
for some time. Whispers of this kind come from 
every quarter.'' 

Page 179: ^^Wadsworth has sent off his 
small vessels for the southern states on the er- 
rand of buying up certificates. Nobody doubts 
but all commotion originated from the Treas- 
ury, but the fault is laid on Duer but respondeat 
superior/^ 

Page 188 : ^ ' If I needed proof of the baseness 
of Hamilton, I have it in the fullest manner. 
This day his price was communicated in manu- 
script as far as Philadelphia. Thomas Willing 
in a letter to the speaker of the Eepresentatives, 
after passing many eulogiums on Hamilton's 
plan, concludes, ' For I have seen in manuscript 
his whole price ' and it has been used as the basis 



00 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

ol' tlie most abandoned system of speculation 
ever broached in our country. ' ^ 

Fnv^e 2G8: ^'The most villainous and aban- 
doned speculation took place last winter from 
the Treasury. Some resolutions have passed 
the House of Representatives and are come up to 
us.'^ 

Page 269 : ^ ^ I can see him warping over in 
the case of the Baron [ Steuben ^s extra pension 
casej to get a sum of money on his account or 
rather only in his name which would sink imme- 
diately into the jaws of Hamilton and his crew.'' 

l^ige 321) : ' ' Here are their best interests sac- 
riiiced to the vain whim of iixing congress and 
a great commercial town (so opposite to the 
genius of the southern planter) on the Potomac 
and the President has become in the hands of 
Hamilton, the disclout of every dirty speculation 
as his name goes to wipe away blame and silence 
all murnuiring.'' 

Page 331: ^^The Secretary [Hamilton] and 
his group of speculators are at last, in a degree 
triumphant. Everything, even to the naming 
of a committee, is pre-arranged by Hamilton and 
his group of speculators.'' 

Page 377 : ^ ' I had told the Treasurer [Hamil- 
ton] some time ago that I wanted to sell him 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 91 

some stock. When I came home from meeting 
I found note from him imploring that he would 
buy to-morrow. This in a great measure, con- 
lirms my former suspicions with respect to the 
Treasury.'' 

In this transaction Hamilton did not use either 
Keynolds or any other man as a broker. These 
extracts are surely sufficient to carry conviction 
to any impartial mind. But if they do not, could 
that conviction be produced if I piled Pelion on 
Ossa? 

This remarkable Journal, self-evidently the 
utterance of an honest man, draws a picture of 
Hamilton in comparison with which (Jal lender's 
books are only dau?js. As Maclay retired March 
3, 1791, his Journal does not touch upon the pro- 
ceedings between Hamilton and Eeynolds, which 
Hamilton, emboldened by impunity in the x^ast, 
felt that he could conduct with more openness, 
and with certainty of greater profit, through an 
intermediary. Having, there is reason to sus- 
pect, discharged Duer, Hamilton selected Eey- 
nolds as his agent. If Maclay had remained in 
the Senate Hamilton's interview with Monroe, 
Venable, and Muhlenberg would have had a 
more tragic ending. Possibly Washington 



92 A STUDY IIT ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

might have heard of these transactions, not only 
from these gentlemen, but from Maclay, in his 
official character as Senator. Hamilton's resig- 
nation would have been tendered before Decem- 
ber, 1795, and Mrs. Eeynolds might have es- 
caped the infamous avowal of his amour. 

Imagination fails in its usual office when it 
deals with the conduct and character of such a 
creature as Hamilton disclosed himself to be in 
his own vindication. These extracts from 
Maclay are the evidences of Hamilton's tact and 
shrewdness in his not asserting in so many 
words that he had never bought or speculated 
in government certificates. Maclay was still 
alive, living in or near Philadelphia, and might 
have been called as a witness. What then? 



CHAPTER V 

During the War of the Revolution many citi- 
zens, true to their allegiance to the English 
crown, open and avowed in their loyalty, were 
called Tories. Many of them desired independ- 
ence for the colonies in some measure, but did 
not desire, and would not agree to, an entire 
severance of all the political ties that bound them 
to the mother country. As soon as the Federal 
constitution was finally adopted by all the col- 
onies, now become states, a party, under the 
leadership and formative power of Alexander 
Hamilton, came into existence, with ideas of 
government almost as much English as Ameri- 
can. This party was created by Hamilton, and 
was called the Federalists, or Federal, party. 
Hamilton inspired and guided its every move- 
ment, its every thought, and its every ambition. 

Alexander Hamilton begat the Federal party, 
the Federal party begat the Whig party, the 
Whig party begat the Republican party, and 
these three parties were one and the same yes- 
terday, they are one and the same to-day, and 
they will be one and the same forever and for- 
ever. Hamilton's sole object was to create a 

93 



94 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON" 

government outside the Federal constitution, 
and to-day that is the chief object of the Eepub- 
lican party. This new government was to be 
made out of the doctrine of ^ implied powers/' 
Under the constructive decisions of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, which always has 
been merely the exponent of Hamilton's politi- 
cal opinions, as it is to-day the exponent of those 
opinions, no restrictions limit the kind of gov- 
ernment that may be established under the doc- 
trine of implied powers. John Marshall was the 
judicial exponent of Alexander Hamilton — no 
more, no less. 

A few quotations from Maclay's Journal will 
give some startling facts to my readers. 

John Adams was then Vice-President. The 
subject before the senate was the official form 
of addressing the President. 

Page 10: ^'Mr. Adams rose in his chair and 
expressed the greatest surprise that anything 
should be objected to on account of its being 
taken from the practice of that government un- 
der which we had lived so long and happily for- 
merly; that he was for a dignified and respect- 
able government and as far as he knew the senti- 
ments of people, they thought as he did: that 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 95 

for his part he was one of the first in the late 
contest [the Eevolution] and if he could have 
thought of this he never would have drawn his 
sword/' 

Page 12 : ^ ' The unequivocal declaration that 
]ie would never have drawn his sword etc. has 
drawn my mind to the following remarks : that 
the motives of the actors in the late Eevolution 
were various cannot be doubted. The abolish- 
ing of royalty, the extinguishment of patronage 
and dependencies attached to that form of gov- 
ernment, were the exalted motives of many revo- 
lutionists and these were the improvements 
meant by them to be made of the war which was 
forced on us by British aggression — in fine the 
amelioration of government and bettering the 
condition of mankind. These ends and none 
other were publicly avowed and all our consti- 
tutions and public acts were formed in this spirit 
yet there were not wanting a party whose mo- 
tives were different. They wished for the loaves 
and fishes of government and cared for nothing 
else but a translation of the diadem and sceptre 
from London to Boston, New York, or Philadel- 
phia, or, in other words, the creation of a new 
monarchy in America and to form niches for 
themselves in the temple of royalty. ' ' 



96 A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 

Page 389: ^'Annihilation of state govern- 
ment is undoubtedly the object of these people.'* 

Page 116 : ' ' Grayson made a speech. It was 
not long but he had in it this remarkable sen- 
tence — the matter predicted by Mr. Henry is 
now coming to pass — consolidation is the object 
of the new government and the first attempt will 
be to destroy the senate, as they are the repre- 
sentatives of the state legislatures." 

Page 393 : ' ' The new constitution by the in- 
strumentality of the judiciary etc. aims at the 
government of individuals, and the states, unless 
as to the conceded points and with regard to 
their individual sovereignty and independence, 
are left upon stronger ground than formerly 
and it can only be by implication or inference 
that the general Government can exercise con- 
trol over them as states. Any direct or open at- 
tack would be termed usurpation. But whether 
the gradual influence and encroachments of the 
General Government may not gradually swallow 
up the state governments is another matter. ' ' 

Page 392: ''Henry of Maryland joined with 
him; said the constitution of the United States 
implied everything; it was a most admirable 
system. Thus did these heroes vapour and boast 
of their address in having cheated the people 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 97 

and establishing a form of government over 
them which none of them expected.'^ 

These are sufficient — they tell the tale as 
never before in an American history. Once 
more: 

Page 393 : ^ ' The general power to carry the 
constitution into effect by a constructive inter- 
pretation would extend to every case that Con- 
gress may deem necessary or expedient." 

Substitute the federal supreme court for con- 
gress, and you have political conditions as they 
are to-day. 

These are Alexander Hamilton's political 
doctrines, not avowed or put into acts until he 
became Secretary of the Treasury. If Kibot or 
some other scientist of Europe or of America 
is yet searching the annals of the human race, 
studying the traits of human character, with the 
purpose of proving the laws of heredity to be 
absolutely true, and is not yet fully convinced of 
its truth, fixed as the laws of the Medes and 
Persians, let him devote a few spare moments 
to an impartial study of Alexander Hamilton's 
career, private and public, and of the life of his 



y» A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

child, the Federal party, of his grandchild, the 
Whig party, and of his great-grandchild, the Ee- 
publican party, and he will find nothing truer 
than the old maxim: Like father, like son; or, 
this old saying: Water never rises above its 
source. Alexander Hamilton resurrected the 
doctrine of ^ ^ implied powers. ' ' In England that 
doctrine was called the ^^prerogative of the 
crown. ' ' Its exercise cost Charles I his head. Its 
constant exercise brought about the revolution 
of the seventeenth century in England. In 
France it was crystallized into a living fact by 
Louis XIV, who proclaimed: ^^I am the state, 
or the state is myself.'' It was the cause of the 
French Revolution. 

In this country the doctrine of implied powers 
was in reality the real cause of our colonial 
grievances, and was in very truth the mother 
of the American Revolution. It has appeared in 
all countries, and it has the singular power to 
change its name and its appearance to suit its 
surroundings to the nature of the government 
under which it operates. It is the backbone of 
usurpation by the executive, as it is the source 
of his unlawful power. Under our written con- 
stitution the doctrine of implied powers must 
first be put into the form of a law, which, when 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDEK HAMILTON 99 

tested by our federal supreme court, is decided 
to be constitutional. Thus tlirough the opera- 
tion of a judicial opinion another power is given 
to congressional legislation. In this way doubt- 
ful powers can be made certain, and their exer- 
cise be justified, by a judicial decision. In the 
case of the doctrine of "implied powers" in our 
government under a written constitution, power 
actually denied to Congress has been decided 
by the Supreme Court to have been impliedly 
granted. Where is the limit to this constructive 
enlargement of congressional power? There 
can be none, unless the Supreme Court sees fit 
to ^x it. 

But when will that court draw the line of 
demarcation, and where! Alexander Hamil- 
ton's fame rests on two things: — his essays in 
defense of the Constitution in The Federalist; 
and his resurrection of the royal doctrine of im- 
plied powers. Although there is not a dot of 
an "i'' nor the cross of a "t" in our entire or- 
ganic law that belongs to him, yet he defended 
it with masterly ability. He called it a rope of 
sand — because he could make no better law. He 
attended the constitutional convention at inter- 
vals, and then only for very short periods. 

While many public men desired the independ- 



100 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

ence of the colonies, and in every way contrib- 
uted to the success of the conflict between 
Great Britain and the colonies, yet the antagon- 
ism of their opinions as to the nature and pow- 
ers of the government, after the colonies had 
won their independence and had emerged from 
the conflict, each an independent, separate state 
or sovereignty, divided them into two radical and 
distinct parties. The same antagonisms exist 
to-day. One party desired an imperialism un- 
der the form of a republic. These men became 
Federalists, then Whigs, and now they are Re- 
publicans, of whom Alexander Hamilton, the 
father, is still the inspiration and the idol. The 
other party demanded a true and genuine re- 
public, in form, in power, and in nature. These 
men became Democrats, and they are still Demo- 
crats, of whom Senator Maclay, of Pennsyl- 
vania, was ihe true organizer and founder, but 
of whom Jefferson became the real leader. The 
principles which formed tliese men into dis- 
tinct and dii^'erent politiv^al parties are the same 
to-day. 

I again quote from Bassett, Nation series, 
page 28 : 

'4Iamilton's scheme had also a political pur- 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 101 

pose, which was more important than its finan- 
cial side. He saw that pursuing a strong fiscal 
policy he would draw to his party-following the 
moneyed classes. In this respect he profited by 
his knowledge of English history, for he knew 
that since the days of Walpole the wealthy part 
of the population had exercised a political in- 
fluence out of proportion to its numbers. The 
real object in forming a written constitution was 
to define the rights and powers so that the gov- 
ernment could not usurp or exercise any power 
not expressly granted — in other words, forever 
to kill, destroy, and exclude from the American 
system the doctrine of implied powers, which in 
one form or another, as a prerogative of kings, 
or as the necessity of government, had caused 
so much bloodshed in England. I quote Crom- 
well Army, by C. II. Firth, chap. ^Politics in the 
Army,' page 354: *The demand for security for 
the future necessarily led to direct interference 
in the political settlement of the Kingdom. For 
the soldiers held that they could not be secure 
if the King was restored to his authority without 
proper restrictions or the parliament left in 
possession of the unlimited x>owers it had 
abused. All wise men may see,' declared the 
Army, 'that parliament privileges as well as 



102 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

royal prerogatives may be perverted or abused 
to the destruction of those greater ends for 
whose protection and preservation they were in- 
tended, to wit : the rights and privileges of the 
people and safety of the whole.' '' 

Firth, page 355, referring to the ^* Heads of 
the Proposals of the Army,'' says: *^Its chief 
characteristic was that it aimed at permanently 
limiting not only the power of the King but also 
the power of parliament, and, therefore, it nat- 
urally failed to commend itself to either." 

The basic principle of the American Kevolu- 
tion involved the sovereignty of the people. 
Consequently the people, and the people alone, 
had the right to make the government by which 
they were to be governed, according to a form 
to be selected by themselves. Under the opera- 
tion of this fundamental principle the govern- 
ment was their agent. The government ceased 
then and there to be sovereign, and became 
based on the personality of man. 

This fundamental principle was the beginning 
of a new dispensation in politics. It owes its 
origin to the political side of Calvinism, for 
John Calvin, and he alone, discovered the per- 
sonality of man. He found man a slave; he 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 103 

made him a freeman. He found him a subject ; 
he made him a citizen. 

The nullification of this feature of the federal 
constitution was the moral treason of Alexander 
Hamilton and John Marshall. To create a cor- 
poration under the old theory was an act of 
sovereignty; hence Hamilton advocated a fed- 
eral bank, although he knew personally that the 
power to organize a bank expressly had been 
denied to the federal government. John Mar- 
shall announced that a charter passed by a state 
government was a contract, therefore protected 
by the federal constitution. The next step was 
to decide that the federal congress had the im- 
plied power to create a corporation, and Mar- 
shall did so decide. The work was accomplished. 
The treasonable design of Alexander Hamilton 
and John Marshall was a judicial success, and 
the grand work of the American Eevolution was 
undone, and once more in defiance of God and 
human rights, Man was sunk to a subject, and 
Government, with its divine right to reign, was 
announced as the monarchy of the world. Con- 
sequently the old conflict that has surged 
through all human history — the conflict between 
freedom and tyranny — has not yet been settled. 

In this country — free America — Hamilton 



104 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

and Marshall threw our government back upon 
the highway of English history, behind the par- 
liament that made the English monarchy a con- 
stitutional government, to the time of Charles I, 
who lost his head by asserting that the preroga- 
tive of the king contained implied powers of sov- 
ereignty, with respect to which he was the sole 
judge by right divine. 

It is necessary to this argument to quote in 
full the clause of the federal constitution that 
gives in detail the powers granted to congress. 
They are as follows : 

^^Sect. VIIL 

^ ^ The Congress shall have power 

^^1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, 
and excises ; to pay the debts and provide for the 
common defense and general welfare of the 
United States: but all duties, imposts, and ex- 
cises shall be uniform throughout the United 
States : 

^'2. To borrow money on the credit of the 
United States : 

^^3. To regulate commerce with foreign na- 
tions, and among the several states, and with 
the Indian tribes : 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 105 

^^4. To establish a uniform rule of naturali- 
zation, and uniform laws on the subject of bank- 
ruptcies throughout the United States : 

'^5. To coin money, regulate the value 
thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard 
of weights and measures : 

^^6. To provide for the punishment of coun- 
terfeiting the securities and current coin of the 
United States: 

'^1. To establish post offices and post roads : 

^^8. To promote the progress of science and 
useful arts, by securing, for limited times, to au- 
thors and inventors the exclusive right to their 
respective writings and discoveries: 

'^9. To constitute tribunals inferior to the 
supreme court : 

^^10. To define and punish piracies and fel- 
onies committed on the high seas, and offenses 
against the law of nations : 

' '• 11. To declare war, grant letters of marque 
and reprisal, and make rules concerning cap- 
tures on land and water : 

^^12. To raise and support armies; but no 
appropriation of money to that use shall be for 
a longer term than two years : 

13. To provide and maintain a navy : 



a 



106 A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 



^ ^ 14. To make rules for the government and 
regulation of the land and naval forces : 

^ ^ 15. To provide for calling forth the militia 
to execute the laws of the Union, suppress in- 
surrections, and repel invasions: 

^ ' 16. To provide for organizing, arming, and 
disciplining the militia, and for governing such 
part of them as may be employed in the service 
of the United States, reserving to the states re- 
spectively the appointment of the officers, and 
the authority of training the militia, according 
to the discipline prescribed by Congress : 

^^17. To exercise exclusive legislation, in all 
cases whatsoever, over such district (not ex- 
ceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of 
particular states, and the acceptance of Con- 
gress, become the seat of government of the 
United States, and to exercise like authority 
over all places purchased by the consent of the 
legislature of the states in which the same shall 
be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, 
dock-yards, and other needful buildings: And 

"18. To make all laws which shall be neces- 
sary and proper for carrying into effect the fore- 
going powers, and all other powers vested by 
this constitution in the government of the United 
States, or in any department or officer thereof.'' 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 



10' 



The last clause, '^^nd to make all laws which 
shall be necessary and proper for carrying into 
effect the foregoing powers and all other powers 
vested by this Constitution in the government 
of the United States or in any department or 
officer thereof/' has been called ''the elastic 
clause. ' ' A better name for it would be ' ' Trojan 
Horse,'' because it holds in itself that enemy to 
the state— the doctrine of implied powers. A 
government outside of our written constitution, 
with its expressly enumerated powers, has been 
built up in this country, from those words, by 
Hamilton and Marshall, a government under 
which its citizens now live, which was never 
thought of by the members of the federal con- 
vention. Take each subdivision of this section : 
can any man draw the conclusion that a bank 
was necessary to carry into effect the power 
mentioned? A bank could not be organized 
without an act of incorporation, defining and 
limiting its powers and their exercise. An act 
of that sort was both a financial and govern- 
mental necessity. Kasson, in his Evolution of 
the Federal Constitution, page 126, gives an 
enumeration of twenty-one different powers 
proposed by Madison to the convention. Among 
them was the power ''to grant charters of incor- 



108 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

poration. ' ' And Kasson then says that the pow- 
ers proposed were referred to the committee of 
detail, but were not reported. 

Kasson, page 149: ^' There is no trace in the 
recorded debates of the belief of a single mem- 
ber that nnder the power to borrow money con- 
gress could exercise the power of making their 
bills a legal tender for private debts. There is 
rather the contrary indication that they consid- 
ered this authority non-existent unless it should 
be enumerated among the express powers 
granted. The authority as assumed in later 
years appears to have been an unwarranted de- 
duction from the general power to provide for 
carrying into effect other powers that were 
granted. The Convention, while prohibiting the 
power to the States, supposed it sufficient to sim- 
ply withhold the authority from the Congress 
of the United States.'' 

This analysis as to this particular power, if 
applied to any or all the other powers, would 
reach the same logical conclusion as to the crea- 
tion of a national bank under any of the other 
130wers expressly enumerated and granted in 
section VII. But what are the facts as to the 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 109 

action of the convention upon this important 
subject, with which Hamilton was himself as 
well acquainted as any man in that convention 
or out! He knew well, thoroughly, the mind of 
the convention on the matter. Bearing in mind 
that Hamilton was a member of the convention 
and signed the Constitution, what are the facts 
relative to this subject? 

I quote from Madison's letter to Edmund 
Pendleton, Madison Papers, Vol. 1, page 104-5 : 

^^ Yesterday was opened for the first time the 
bank instituted under the auspices of Congress. 
The competency of Congress to such an act had 
been called in question in the first instance; but 
the subject not lying in so near and distinct a 
view, the objections did not x^revail. On the last 
occasion the general opinion, though with some 
exceptions, was that the confederation gave no 
such power, and that the exercise of it would 
not bear the test of a forensic disquisition and 
consequently would not avail the institution. 
Something like a middle way finally produced 
an acquiescing, rather than an affirmative vote. 
A charter of incorporation was granted, with a 
recommendation to the States to give it all the 
necessary validity within their respective juris- 



110 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

dictions. As this is a tacit admission of a defect 
of power, I hope it will be an antidote against 
the poisonous tendency of precedents of usurpa- 
tion. '^ 

This fact is furnished by the history of the 
struggle under the confederation. It is very 
significant in its political nature, and important 
in its bearing upon the convention, which did 
not meet till 1787. 

Madison Papers, Vol. 3, page 1,576: ^^Mr. 
Madison suggested an enlargement of the motion 
into a power ^ to grant charters of incorporation 
where the interest of the United States might 
require and the legislative provisions of indi- 
vidual states may be incompetent. ' Col. Mason 
was for limiting the power to the single case of 
canals. He was afraid of monopolies of every 
sort, which he did not think were by any means 
already implied by the Constitution, as supposed 
by Mr. Wilson." 

The motion being so modified as to admit a 
distinct question, specifying, and limited to, the 
case of canals, the vote stood Pennsylvania, 
Virginia, Georgia, aye 3 ; the others, 8, no. ^ ^ The 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 111 

other part fell, of course, as including the power 
rejected.'' 

These are the facts. They are the only true 
guides to a correct exposition of the powers of 
congress. The facts that underlie contracts, on 
account of which laws are enacted to redress 
grievances produced 'by them or to protect 
rights which have been invaded, alone can fur- 
nish the rules to expound and interpret those 
laws and contracts ; and when they are ignored, 
discarded, or denied the exposition points to a 
direct usurpation of power, having its birth in 
the imagination, — a mental bastard, sui generis. 
The federal constitution was germinated out of 
the historic facts that preceded the revolution 
of 1776. When the Constitution was before 
South Carolina for adoption or for rejection, 
Colisworth Pinckney used these words: *^By 
this settlement we have secured an unlimited 
importation of negroes for twenty years. The 
general government can never emancipate them, 
for no such authority is granted, and it is ad- 
mitted on all hands that the general government 
has no powers but what are expressly granted 
by the Constitution." 

The statement made by Pinckney was of fact, 
and was so recognized by every member of the 



112 A STUDY IN ALEXANDEK HAMILTON 

federal convention. When the members re- 
turned to their several states to plead for the 
adoption of the Constitution, not one of them 
would have dared to intimate in any way the 
doctrine of implied powers. If he had, the con- 
stitution would never have been adopted by a 
single state. How did it happen that this in- 
iquitous doctrine, — which in England had cost 
Charles I his head, in France under Louis XIV 
had sowed the seeds that blossomed in their 
full growth when they produced the French 
Eevolution, and which in this country will yet 
produce a similar revolution, in order to recover 
from the grasp of the federal supreme court 
those rights and principles for which our pa- 
triotic forefathers rebelled against the British 
crown and fought the war of 1776, — how is it 
that a doctrine so iniquitous became fastened 
upon us? That question in a measure can be 
answered by the words of Hamilton himself, to 
be found in Vol. 3, page 106, Madison Papers: 

^*No man's ideas were more remote from the 
plan than his own were known to be; but is it 
possible to deliberate between anarchy and con- 
vulsion on one side and the chance of good to be 
expected from the plan on the other?" 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 113 

Note those significant words, 'Hhe chance of 
good. ' ' Hamilton was prepared to sign the Con- 
stitution on this ground, and on none other, little 
dreaming that he would ever have the ' ' chance of 
good'' that came to him as Secretary of the 
Treasury to start that radical movement that, 
under John Marshall, was to wrench the Consti- 
tution from constitutional government, then cre- 
ate a government by judicial opinion outside 
that constitution, to gratify Hamilton's British 
proclivities, and to make the federal supreme 
court the political and judicial autocrat of dem- 
ocratic America. The American people, through 
the doctrine of imphed powers, are living not 
under the federal constitution, but under the 
government of the federal supreme court,— a 
government created of its own imagination, and 
in defiance of the constitution which that court's 
judicial oath required it to support and to de- 
fend. And that court is to-day, and never has 
been other than, the exponent of Alexander 
Hamilton's political principles, through Jolm 
Marshall's judicial decisions, which have been 
accepted and followed as infallible. 

Madison Papers, Vol. 3, page 1507: ^'Mr. 
Hamilton said, that he had been restrained from 



114 A STUDY IN ALEXANDEB HAMILTON 

entering into the discussions by his dislike of the 
scheme of government in general; but as he 
meant to supiDort the plan to be recommended 
as better than nothing, he wished in this place to 
offer a few remarks. ' ' 

The impudent vanity of these words is re- 
freshing when one calls to mind that Hamilton 
was addressing the most remarkable body of 
men of brains, culture, and sagacity that ever 
assembled on this globe, and at the same time 
showing to those men his cloven foot, which was 
then limping back to England. During the Eevo- 
lution he fought for the colonies, but as soon as 
their independence was won and acknowledged 
his loyalty to the monarchical principles and 
form of the English government burst forth in 
all its pristine vigor, refreshed, rejuvenated, and 
reinvigorated by the rest of the Revolutionary 
struggle. I will close this chapter with the 
words of Pierce Butler, of South Carolina, '^We 
were always following the British Constitution 
when the reason of it did not apply." 



CHAPTER VI 

Hamilton's own words are indisputable evi- 
dence of his political principles. They show 
why he resurrected from its English grave the 
crown's prerogative, brought it to America, and 
then gave to it the name of ^'implied powers." 
I quote from Madison Papers, Vol. 2. 

Page 885, speaking of the states, Hamilton 
said : ^ ' They are not necessary for any of the 
great purposes of commerce, revenue or agricul- 
ture, subordinate authorities, he was aware, 
would be necessary. There must be district 
tribunals — corporations for local purposes. But 
cui bono the vast and expensive apparatus now 
appertaining to the states. 

^Mn his private opinion he had no scruple in 
declaring, supported as he was by the opinion 
of so many of the wise and good, that the British 
government w^as the best in the world ; and that 
he doubted much whether anything short of it 
would do in America. ' ' 

Page 888 : ^ ^ Let one branch of the legislature 
hold their places for life or at least during good 
behaviour. Let the Executive, also, be for life. ' ■ 

115 



116 A STUDY m ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

Page 889: ^'It will be objected, probably, 
that such an Executive will be an elective mon- 
arch and will give birth to the tumults which 
characterize that form of government. He 
would reply that 'monarch' is an indefinite term. 
It marks not either the degree or duration of 
power. If this executive magistrate would be 
a monarch for life, the other proposed by the re- 
port from the committee of the whole would be 
a monarch for seven years. The circumstances 
of being elective was also applicable to both. It 
had been observed by judicious writers, that 
elective monarchies would be the best, if they 
could be guarded against the tumults excited by 
the ambition and intrigues of competitors. He 
was not sure that tumults were an inseparable 
evil. He thought this character of elective mon- 
archies had been taken rather from particular 
cases than from general principles." 

Page 890 : ' 'But he sees the Union dissolving 
or already dissolved — he sees evils operating 
in the states which must soon cure the people of 
their fondness for democracies — he sees that a 
great progress has been already made and is 
still going on in the public mind. He thinks, 
therefore, that the people will in time be un- 
shackled from their prejudices, and whenever 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 117 

that happens they will themselves not be satis- 
fied at stopping where the plan of Mr. Randolph 
would place them, but be ready to go as far at 
least as he proposes.'' 

Page 905 : ' ' He had not been understood yes- 
terday. By an abolition of the States, he meant 
that no boundary could be drawn between the 
national and state legislatures— that the former 
must therefore have indefinite authority. If it 
were limited at all, the rivalship of the states 
would gradually subvert it. As states he 
thought they ought to be abolished. But he ad- 
mitted the necessity of leaving in them subordi- 
nate jurisdictions. ' ' 

If the states were abolished the government 
would indeed be a really national government, 
not federal, acting directly upon the people, re- 
gardless of state rights, and touched with the 
poison of the English disease, from which, in 
the secret chambers of his profound intellect, 
Hamilton entertained marvelous hopes in the 
future. Under the influence and the guidance of 
Hamilton's political principles, by the decisions 
of the federal supreme court at the present rate 
of the development and application of the^ doc- 
trine of implied powers, the states soon will be 



118 A STUDY IIT ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

abolished — ^but empty shells on our political 
ocean. In only a few more years, if the Supreme 
Court does not go back to the Constitution, the 
states will be in American history what Junius 
is in English literature — stat nomhils umbra. 
The senate to-day represents the states and their 
sovereignty, and that fact alone is indisputable 
proof that our government is a federal union. 
The dullest man in the convention could see the 
drift of Hamilton's thoughts and intentions — 
that the states would not, could not, be ignored 
in their sovereignty. That was the reason that 
Hamilton advocated their abolition. 

From these quotations, coupled with his opin- 
ion that the chief executive of our government 
should hold office for life, — a republican king un- 
der a pretended democratic constitution, — and a 
senate whose members should hold their seats 
for a similar term, or during good behavior, — 
a republican house of lords, — you have the pic- 
ture of Hamilton as a statesman painted by his 
own hand, a picture by a man that fought dur- 
ing the Eevolution, in open and hostile rebellion, 
that these very institutions be not fastened upon 
the colonies. When the colonies by their blood 
had won their independence and had become in- 
dependent sovereignties, Hamilton advocated 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 119 

the restoration of the institutions against which 
he had fought. Let us take a glance as this man, 
advocating in The Federalist the adoption of 
this same constitution, and you will have a pic- 
ture of him as an advocate ready to engage in 
any cause. The picture will be in strong con- 
trast to the eulogies and the biographies of 
Hamilton by writers who have taken him at his 
own estimate, without reflection or without criti- 
cal examination of the facts. With the vast ma- 
jority of men mental attainments are not the re- 
sult of digestive thought, but the reality of a 
retentive memory only. Their minds are only a 
warehouse, into which they gather the thoughts 
of other men, to be used by them as occasion de- 
mands. They read mechanically, and they think 
automatically with their memories. Their in- 
vestigations travel the old beaten highway of 
accepted opinion, and if they accidentally 
stumble upon a new fact they are so enraptured 
with the discovery that they neither observe its 
bearing nor ascertain its truth. Even Hudibras 
has told the story thus: 

^'That we should all opinions hold authentic, 
that we can make old.'' 

The Federalist (Dawson's edition), page 50: 

^^So far are the suggestions of Montesquieu 



120 A STUDY IX ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

from standing in opposition to a general union 
of the states that he explicitly treats of a Con- 
federate Eepublic as the expedient for extend- 
ing the sphere of popular government and rec- 
onciling the advantages of monarchy with those 
of Eepublicanism. ' ' 

Here follows a quotation from Montesquieu: 

^ ' It is very probable that mankind would have 
been obliged, at length, to live constantly under 
the government of a single person, had they not 
contrived a kind of constitution, that has all the 
internal advantages of a Eepublican, together 
with the external force of a Monarchical govern- 
ment. I mean a Confederate Eepublic. This 
form of government is a convention by which 
several smaller states agree to become members 
of a larger one, which they intend to form. It 
is a kind of assemblage of societies that con- 
stitute a new one, capable of increasing by 
means of new associations, till they arrive to 
such a degree of power as to be able to provide 
for the security of the United body. A Eepublic 
of this kind, able to withstand an external force, 
may support itself without any internal cor- 
ruptions. As this government is composed of 
small Eepublics, it enjoys the internal happiness 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 121 

of each; and with respect to its external situa- 
tion it is possessed by means of the association, 
of all the advantages of large monarchies. ' ' 

I have thought proper to quote at length these 
interesting passages, because they contain a 
luminous abridgment of the principal argu- 
ments in favor of the union, and must effectu- 
ally remove the false impressions which a mis- 
apprehension of other parts of the work was 
likely to make. And could Hamilton himself 
have written a stronger argument to refute his 
doctrine of implied powers than is stated in 
these extracts? 

The Federalist, Dawson's edition: 

Page 108 : ^'But let it be admitted, for argu- 
ment's sake, that mere wantonness and lust of 
domination would be sufficient to beget that dis- 
position; still it may be safely affirmed, that 
the sense of the constituent body of the National 
representatives, or, in other words, of the Peo- 
ple of the several States, would control the in- 
dulgence of so extravagant an appetite. It will 
always be far more easy for the State Govern- 
ment to encroach upon the State authorities, 
than fo^' the National Government to encroach 



122 A STUDY IN ALEXANDEK HAMILTON 

upon the State authorities. The proof of the 
proposition turns upon the greater degree of 
influence which the State Governments, if they 
administer their affairs with uprightness and 
prudence, will generally possess over the Peo- 
ple; a circumstance which at the same time 
teaches us, that there is an inherent and intrinsic 
weakness in all Federal Constitutions; and 
that too much pains cannot be taken in their 
organization, to give them all the force which is 
compatible with the principles of liberty.'' 

Page 199: ^^An entire consolidation of the 
States into one complete National sovereignty 
would imply an entire subordination of the 
parts; and whatever powers might remain in 
them, would be altogether dependent on the gen- 
eral will. But as the plan of the Convention 
aims only at a partial union or consolidation, 
the State Governments would clearly retain 
all the rights of sovereignty which they before 
had, and which were not, by that act, exclusively 
delegated to the United States. This exclusive 
delegation, or rather this alienation, of State 
sovereignty, would only exist in three cases: 
where the Constitution in express terms granted 
an exclusive authority to the Union; where it 
granted in one instance an authority to the 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 123 

Union, and in another prohibited the States from 
exercising the like authority: and where it 
granted an authority to the Union, to which a 
similar authority in the States would be abso- 
lutelv and totally contradictory and repugnant. 

Pages 597, 598, 599: '^It has been several 
times truly remarked, that Bills of Eights are, 
in their origin, stipulations between kings and 
their subjects, abridgements of prerogative in 
favour of privilege, reservations of rights not 
surrendered to the prince. Such was Magna 
Charta, obtained by the Barons, sword m hand, 
from King John. Such were the subsequent 
confirmations of that charter by succeeding 
princes. Such was the Petition of Right as- 
sented to by Charles I, in the beginning of his 
reign. Such, also, was the Declaration of Eight 
presented by the Lords and Commons to the 
Prince of Orange, in 1688, and afterwards 
thrown into the form of an Act of Parliament 
called the Bill of Eights. It is evident, there- 
fore, that, according to their primitive signifi- 
cation, they have no application to Constitutions 
professedly founded upon the power of the Peo- 
ple, and executed by their immediate represent- 
atives and servants. Here, in strictness, the 
People surrender nothing; and as they retain 



124 A STUDY IlSr ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

everj^thing, they have no need of particular res- 
ervations. ^We, the People of the United 
States, to secure the blessings of liberty to our- 
selves and our posterity, do ordain and establish 
this Constitution for the United States of Amer- 
ica.' Here is a better recognition of popular 
rights, than volumes of these aphorisms which 
make the principal figure in several of our State 
Bills of Rights, and which would sound much 
better in a treatise of ethics, than in a Constitu- 
tion of Government. 

*'But a minute detail of particular rights is 
certainly far less applicable to a Constitution like 
that under consideration, which is merely in- 
tended to regulate the general political interests 
of the Nation, than to a Constitution which has 
the regulation of every species of personal and 
private concerns. If, therefore, the loud clam- 
ours against the plan of the Convention, on this 
score, are well founded, no epithets of reproba- 
tion will be too strong for the Constitution of 
this State. But the truth is, that both of them 
contain all which, in relation to their objects, is 
reasonably to be desired. 

''I go further, and affirm, that Bills of Eights, 
in the sense and to the extent in which they are 
contended for, are not only unnecessary in the 
proposed Constitution, but would even be dan- 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 125 

gerous. They would contain various exceptions 
to powers not granted ; and on this very account, 
would afford a colourable pretext to claim more 
than were granted. For why declare that things 
shall not be done which there is no power to do? 
Why, for instance, should it said, that the lib- 
erty of the press shall not be restrained, when 
no power is given by which restrictions may be 
imposed! I will not contend that such a pro- 
vision would confer a reg-ulating power ; but it 
ife evident that it would furnish, to men disposed 
to usurp, a plausible pretence for claiming that 
power. They might urge with a semblance of 
reason, that the Constitution ought not to be 
charged with the absurdity of providing against 
the abuse of an authority, which was not given, 
and that the provision against restraining the 
liberty of the press afforded a clear implica- 
tion, that a power to prescribe proper regula- 
tions concerning it was intended to be vested 
in the National Government. This may serve 
as a specimen of the numerous handles which 
would be given to the doctrine of constructive 
powers, by the indulgence of an injudicious zeal 
for Bills of Rights.^' 

Were these Hamilton's real opinions, or were 
they merely written and published by him for a 



126 A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 

definite purpose, like the argument of the paid 
advocate? The question is pertinent, because 
when he became Secretary of the Treasury these 
opinions were all dropped, and his official acts 
showed his true opinions on government and 
the federal constitution. Hamilton ought to 
have gone to England after the Eevolution. His 
magnetic character and his brilliant intellect 
would have soon found ample room for his tow- 
ering ambition. 

Did any other public man of that day state 
the organic nature of our government under the 
Constitution in such clear language, or prove 
so indisputably that the government was not a 
national government I 

But this significant statement on this subject 
is to be found : 

Page 185: '^It may safely be received as an 
axiom in our political system, that the State 
Governments will, in all possible contingencies, 
atford complete security against invasions of 
the public liberty by the National authority. 
Projects of usurpation cannot be masked under 
pretences so likely to escape the penetration of 
select bodies of men, as of the People at large. 
The Legislatures will have better means of in- 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 127 

formation. They can discover the danger at a 
distance ; and possessing all the organs of civil 
power, and the confidence of the People, they 
can at once adopt a regular plan of opposition, 
in which they can combine the resources of the 
community. They can readily communicate 
with each other in the different States; and 
unite their common forces, for the protection of 
their common liberty." 

In no number of The Federalist can any one 
detect even a hint of the doctrine of implied 
powers. In his discussion of this ^'elastic 
clause'' he hints in the most adroit manner at 
the powers of congress to carry into practical 
effect the powers granted in this entire section ; 
but he uses words to conceal his ideas. 

When Hamilton proposed the incorporation 
of a national bank Washington at first had se- 
rious doubts on the subject, so asked the opinion 
of his cabinet. Why? As president of the con- 
vention he had kept a watchful eye upon all its 
proceedings. He knew that Madison had pro- 
posed by resolution to grant the power to con- 
gress to create corporations, and that the reso- 
lution had been lost by a very large majority. 
Hamilton was a member of that convention, so 



128 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

knew the same fact. Hamilton proposed to in- 
corporate a national bank; hence Washington 
doubted. 

Jefferson strongly opposed the measure. Our 
subsequent history is indisputable proof that a 
national bank is not, and never was, a necessity 
to the government in the conduct of its fiscal 
affairs. Suppose a federal bank were in exist- 
ence to-day, with its vast subtle, undetected in- 
fluence in our public affairs through Congress 
and in other ways, what would be our political 
condition, not only at Washington, but through- 
out this broad land, where there are open and 
undisguised corruption in high places, fawning 
sycophancy and cringing cowardice, when pub- 
lic decency cannot walk the streets of our federal 
capital without blushing, and while a politician 
to be honest in public life is self-evident proof 
that he is an impracticable in practical politics 1 
But the bank was proposed with a well defined 
object in his view. 

His point gained, this measure carried, Ham- 
ilton supported by Washington's supreme in- 
fluence and by public approval, the doctrine of 
implied powers, concealed under the adroit argu- 
ment of fiscal necessity, burst forth fully grown 
like Minerva from the brain of Jupiter. What 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 129 

then became of the position that the Constitu- 
tion had only created a government of enmner- 
ated powers? The true political object of Ham- 
ilton's measure was to build up a government 
outside the federal constitution and by that 
means to fling our government back along the 
pathway of English history, until possibly Ham- 
ilton might realize his hope of seeing his nu^del 
of the best government on earth in practice here 
despite the restrictions set forth in hac verba 
in the constitution itself. 

I quote from Gordy's Political Parties, Vol. 1, 
page 130 : 

^ ' The bill to incorporate a national bank was 
first introduced in the senate. When it reached 
the house, it was opposed by Madison with great 
ability, on constitutional grounds. He declared 
that 'the exercise of the power asserted in the 
bill involves all the guilt of usurpation and es- 
tablishes a precedent of interpretation,' leveling 
all the barriers which limit the powers of the 
general government and protect those of the 
State governments." 

Gordy, page 131: *' Hamilton doubtless be- 
lieved, and rightly, that a bank would be of great 
service to the government in performing the 



130 A STUDY IN ALEXANDEK HAMILTON 

duties imposed upon it by the Constitution. But 
the political purposes to be served by it were 
IDrobably quite as important from his point of 
view. We remember how unwilling he was to 
withhold from the owners of property a means 
of defending themselves against the violence 
and turbulence of democracy. Hamilton doubt- 
less wished by the incorporation of a Bank to 
array upon the side of the government all of the 
wealthy men whose pecuniary interests in the 
bank would give them an interest in supporting 
the government. But what he probably wished 
to accomplish most of all was to bring into play 
the implied powers of the Constitution. ' ' 

Gordy, page 133: ^^ Hamilton, despite his 
fundamental allegiance to order, was devoted 
to liberty, but he thought the centrifugal tend- 
encies of society were so powerful that liberty 
would degenerate into anarchy unless it should 
be kept in bounds by a strong government — a 
government in which the intelligent and prop- 
erty owning classes should be given so large a 
share of power that they could be used as a dike 
against the rising tide of democracy.*^ 

Gordy, page 135 : ^ ' Jefferson 's opinion began 
as follows: 'I consider the foundation of the 
Constitution as laid on this ground — that all 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 131 

powers not delegated to the United States by 
the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the 
States, are reserved to the States or to the peo- 
ple. To take a single step beyond the boundaries 
thus specially drawn around the powers of 
Congress, is to take possession of a boundless 
field of power no longer susceptible of any defini- 
tion.' '' 

Gordy, page 136: ^^In brief, Jefferson inter- 
preted this clause as if it had been written as 
follows — And Congress shall have power to 
pass all laws which may be absolutely and in- 
dispensably necessary for carrying into effect 
the foregoing powers. '^ 

As to Hamilton, Gordy, page 137, comments 
as follows : 

^^From his point of view, to prove the consti- 
tutionality of the bill providing for a bank, no 
more was necessary than to show that a bank 
would be useful to the government in borrowing 
money or collecting taxes, and that the Constitu- 
tion had not prohibited Congress from creating 



Yet Hamilton did know it to be an actual fact 



132 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

that the federal convention had in the most posi- 
tive manner flatly refused to grant that very 
power to congress, by a very large majority. 

Gordy, page 138: ''They [Jefferson and 
Madison] saw a plain connection between Ham- 
ilton's speech in the federal convention and his 
financial policy and the theory of constitutional 
interpretation upon which it was based. Upon 
such facts as foundation for such opinions it 
was certainly not unnatural for Jefferson and 
Madison (to say nothing of men of less discern- 
ment) to conclude that Hamilton and the party 
which recognized him as its leader intended to 
subvert the Constitution, either openly or prac- 
tically, by interpretation. ' ' 

Gordy, page 139: ''Tliis opinion was 
strengthened during the next session of Con- 
gress when Hamilton submitted to that body 
his report on manufactures. According to the 
doctrine of that report. Congress has unlimited 
power to do anything which can be done by 
money to promote the general welfare. ' ' 

Such an interpretation of the Constitution 
conferred upon Congress the power which in his 
convention speech Hamilton had declared ought 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 



133 



to belong to it. According to that speech, Con- 
gress ought to have the right to pass laws on 
any subject whatever ; according to the report, 
Congress had the right to pass laws on any sub- 
ject that requires the application of money. No 
wonder Madison declared that according to 
that interpretation, the government is no longer 
a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, 
but an indefinite one, subject to particular re- 
strictions. 

Upon the subject of enumerated powers the 
Supreme Court has rendered a recent opinion 
which is so refreshing that I can not resist the 
temptation to quote it. In Hodges vs, U. S., 203 
U. S. R. 16, Justice Brewer used these words : 
'' Notwithstanding the adoption of these three 
amendments the national government still re- 
mains one of enumerated powers and the tenth 
amendment which reads — 'the powers not dele- 
gated to the United States by the Constitution 
nor prohibited by it to the states are reserved 
to the states respectively or to the people' is 
not shorn of its vitality.'' To that opinion Jus- 
tice John Marshall Harlan dissented. What a 
revival of ancient history is contained in these 
words! Justice Brewer must have found this 
nugget of constitutional gold in the rubbish of 



134 A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 

the lumber room of judicial history. What was 
he doing in that room? Did he bear a permit 
from John Marshall ! If not, he was an officious 
intruder. Then, he deserves a reprimand for 
such a blasphemy on the name and fame of John 
Marshall. 

The following very striking words are taken 
from MacDonald's Jacksonian Democracy: 

Page 77 : '' The advocates of strict construc- 
tion in 1828 felt, though not all of them clearly 
perceived, that their opponents had shifted their 
ground, and that instead of seeking the author- 
ity for federal action in the words of the Con- 
stitution, or in a reasonable implication there- 
from, loose construction had come to mean the 
right of the Federal government to do whatever 
was not forbidden by the Constitution, provided 
the act was deemed to be for the general good. 
If such a theory of constitutional construction 
were to prevail and the original notion of the 
Constitution as a grant of powers, under which 
everything not granted was withheld, were to be 
replaced by the theory that everything not with- 
held was granted, the federal government would 
be admittedly supreme, and the reserved rights 
of the states would speedily become only a form 
of words.'' 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDEB HAMILTON 135 

From John Fiske, a Massachusetts man, Har- 
vard bred, it was hardly to be fP^^teJ of all 
the men who have written about Ham It on the 
most just and critical estimate of ^is P^^ic diar- 
acter and career and of tlie aim of his political 
principles. But such is the fact, as is clear from 
his brilliant essay on Hamilton, from which I 

%t},e^B Essays, Vol. 1, "Hamilton," page 
115: 

' ' He was a devoted friend to free government ; 
not, however, to that kind of free government 
in ;hich the people rule, but the kind m which 
they are ruled by an upper class, with elaboiate 
safeguards against the abuse of power. 

Fi!ke, pagf 113: "He had already pondered 
deeply on those subjects and had already con- 
ceived the scheme of an alliance of interests be- 
tween the federal government and the moneyed 
class of society. One of the instruments by 
which the alliance was to be effected was a na- 
tional bank, which was to be a corporation in 
private hands, but to some extent supported 
and controlled by congress." ^ „^^ 

Fiske, page 130: "Every day showed more 
clearlv that Hamilton's aim was to insure the 
stabilitv of the government through a firm 



k 



136 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

alliance witli capitalists, and the fear was nat- 
ural that such a policy, if not held in check, 
might end in transforming the government into 
a plutocracy — that is to say, a government in 
which political power is monopolized by rich 
men and employed in furthering their selfish 
interests without regard to the general welfare 
of the people. Those who expressed such a fear 
were more prescient than their Federalist ad- 
versaries believed them to be, for now, after a 
lapse of a hundred years, the gravest danger 
that threatens us is precisely such a plutocracy. 
It has been one of our national misfortunes that 
for three-quarters of a century the mere main- 
tenance of the Union seemed to call for theories 
which, when put into operation, are very far 
from making a government that is in the fullest 
sense ^of the people, by the people, for the 
people.' 

^'The only party that ever extricated itself 
from the dilemma and stood at one and the same 
time unflinchingly for the Union and against 
paternal government in every form was the 
party of Jackson and Van Buren, between 1830 
and 1845. But with Hamilton paternal govern- 
ment was desirable not only as a means of 
strengthening the Union but as an end in itself. 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 137 

He believed that a part of the people ought to 
make laws for the whole. ' ' 

What did Fiske intend to say, which he lacked 
the moral courage to publish to the world ? Only 
this, that Hamilton meant that by a national 
bank he would build up classes of men, in busi- 
ness and in politics, who would corrupt the peo- 
ple, by money to get office, and control the gov- 
ernment, and by money corrupt the people, and 
thus retain control of the government. 

Why has this unscrupulous creature been 
fondled and dawled like an infant in its swad- 
dling clothes, guarded from every wind that 
blows, by the men that pretend to write history 
for the American youth? Why is it that his char- 
acter, public and private, has been protected 
from the shafts of truth! This very protection 
to him has been the potent means of concealing 
from the people his iniquitous doctrine of im- 
plied powers. ^'Old Hickory'' understood, and 
appreciated to the full, the extent of the evil 
that Hamilton was spreading through our land. 
The rugged old statesman had the courage to 
remove the deposits of the bank, thus destroy- 
ing it. 

That act was mobocratic and revolutionary; 



138 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

but no man dared to impeacli him. That was 
the only possible way by which the bank could 
be ^'killed" in practical politics. 

The leaders of the Democratic party, blinded 
by the ignis fatutis of their own principles, 
thought that more completely to popularize our 
system of government in the states would en- 
able them to break the force of the doctrine of 
implied powers. Consequently they advocated 
new constitutions in the different states, under 
which the judiciary should be elective. The 
Whigs opposed. 

This movement (to speak in general terms) 
began about the year 1845. No matter what 
may have been its motive and object, it never did 
control the Supreme Court, nor should it have 
done so, though this doctrine of implied powers 
has been made a part of the federal constitution. 
What has been the result of the movement? 

The Democratic party owes its origin and its 
continued life to the very nature of our govern- 
ment. The latter is the mother of the former, 
Avliile the Federal, the Whig, and the Republican 
parties have all been drawn along different lines, 
and represent entirely different purposes and 
interests. The Eepublican party has ever stood 
for money and for power and its exercise in 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 



139 



political affairs, nnder the fostering care of its 
godfather, the Supreme Court of the United 
States. And this movement, nnintentionally 
acting against the true interests and the perma- 
nent stability of onr dual form of government, 
culminated in an elective judiciary. 

And what has the elective judiciary done for 
the country, its patriotism, its \drtue, its hon- 
esty, and its purity ? Nothing— absolutely noth- 
ing! The movement was in some measure due 
also to the desire of the Democratic leaders of 
the day to destroy the Whig party, by showing 
that the Whig party had no confidence in the peo- 
ple. The elective system has degraded and debased 

the bar, debauched the judiciary, made a law 
school of the judicial office, corrupted the poli- 
tics of the country, and made the great mass of 
the people indifferent to the import of current 
events. Meanwhile the greed of money, coupled 
with indifference as to the character of our 
judges, is fast making moral cowardice a trait 
of the American people. ^ 

A bold, learned, and independent state judi- 
ciary, beyond the touch of corporations, beyond 
the influence of scheming politicians, might have 
had the brains to note, and the courage to ex- 
pose, the constant and increasing attacks upon 



14:0 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON" 

the federal constitution by the federal supreme 
court. ^^What will an elective judiciary do to 
protect the states in the enjoyment of their re- 
served rights under our dual system!'' ^^Wait 
till after the next election." And the next elec- 
tion, and to-morrow, never comes. 

May I give a reason for the faith that is in me 
on this the most important movement ever 
started in American politics, the most radical, 
the most far reaching, and the most fraught with 
evil to the American people, with immediate dis- 
aster now at hand — disaster to our system of 
government? It is absolutely clear to my mind, 
if history be a reliable guide, that its effect will 
be soon to turn over to the federal supreme court 
our entire government. That court, having al- 
ready introduced into our political system the 
prerogative of the crown, under the doctrine of 
implied powers, will soon claim the power and 
the right to control the official action of the chief 
executive of our republic, will rob the state 
courts of all jurisdiction over corporations by 
a fiction of the law, — a fiction of the law origi- 
nated by itself for that very purpose, and will 
soon announce the principle that this govern- 
ment is not a compact between the states, that 
its sovereignty does not rest in the people of 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 141 

tlie different states as political bodies, but in 
the federal government, whose powers are to be 
found enumerated and stated in the judicial 
opinions of the Supreme Court of the United 
States. 

A state judiciary, independent in its origin, 
unamenable to current politics, unapproachable 
by corporations through their influence on elec- 
tions, as firm and as fixed in office as the judges 
of the federal supreme court, would have pro- 
tected the states from such opinions. But, over- 
come by intense desire to retain office, they are 
unable to emancipate themselves from the domi- 
nating power of the wire-puller and the political 
boss. The result: the office has become politi- 
cal in its tenure, and the state judges themselves 
are politicians, — a condition so disastrous to the 
principles of the old Democratic party that we 
are confronted with this serious question. Has 
the Democratic party any principle! At the 
time that we deplore this result we more greatly 
lament the other, that the state governments are 
at last entirely at the will of the federal supreme 
court, by whose decisions every point now 
mooted in a state court can easily be made a fed- 
eral question. This means that the ultimate 
jurisdiction of the case is in the federal courts. 



142 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

What is to be the end of this destruction 
of state sovereignty the finite mind of man may 
not foresee. But if history does repeat itself, 
the revolution of 1776, in its fundamental prin- 
ciples, will have to be fought again. If the act 
of Jackson was mobocratic in its nature, as it 
unquestionably was, it was a mob of one man 
who had the courage of his conviction. If he 
broke down the doctrine of implied powers in 
that instance, he could not get at the federal su- 
preme court in any other way, the court that has 
maintained the doctrine of implied powers from 
that day to the present. Who will lead the 
**mob'' when it again undertakes to rid our 
courts of this violent usurpation of rights that 
do not belong to the United States through any 
principle ? 

But the present condition of affairs in our 
states courts and in our practical politics may 
not remain in statu quo — they must progress, 
developing along present lines, unless arrested 
and thown back to the Constitution. Can the 
present condition result in any movement that 
will not inevitably produce a ^^mob'^ or a revo- 
lution? Mobs when successful become known in 
history as revolutions; when unsuccessful, as 
unlawful assemblies. 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 143 

When considered from the standpoint of his- 
tory, why should an American or an Englishman 
stand aghast, looking with horror at such an 
assembly of men determined to right their 
wrongs and defend their rights and ]Drotect 
their liberties? For what is the history of the 
Anglo-Saxon race, from the dawning of the day 
when it emerged from the Black Forest of Ger- 
many to the present time, but the history of a 
mob? 

Let us take a passing glance at the well-estab- 
lished facts of recorded history. The Barons at 
Runnymede were a mob ; then there was the be- 
ginning of government according to law enacted 
by a legislative assembly. Simon de Montfort 
led a mob ; then there was the beginning of the 
English House of Commons; Wat Tyler led a 
mob ; then there was the origin of the great com- 
mon people — a people known only to the Eng- 
lish-speaking race. Charles I was beheaded by a 
mob, and the divine right of kings passed away, 
never again to be known in human history, and 
with it prerogative of kings. Oliver Cromwell 
led a mob; then followed the first assertion of 
all true governmental principles by the common 
people — that government rests on the consent 
of the governed, from which comes that other 



144 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

great principle, the personality of man, which 
is abroad in the world to-day. The convention 
parliament was a mob which drove King James 
from England; then the English monarchy be- 
came a constitutional government, and the pow- 
ers and rights of the people have been steadily 
increasing from that day to this. A mob threw 
tea into Boston harbor ; then began the Ameri- 
can Revolution. George Washington led a mob ; 
and the American colonies became sovereign 
states. The Declaration of Independence was 
promulgated by a mob, and its voice is yet being 
heard, re-echoing around the globe, giving vital- 
ity to the dead rights of the dead. Abraham 
Lincoln led a mob, and, thanks be to Almighty 
God, not a human being on the habitable globe 
that speaks the English language as his native 
tongue is a slave to-day. 

The federal courts have carried their enforce- 
ment of Hamilton's principles far enough. The 
American people have had enough of the bril- 
liant bastard. 



CHAPTEE VII 

The doctrine of state rights is beginning once 
more to show its face to the American people. 
One may hear its utterance on many unexpected 
occasions, from many men who were scarcely 
expected to touch that question in their public 
utterances. The doctrine of state sovereignty 
has not been wholly overthrown; home rule in 
principle is not yet dead. An elective judiciary 
may not be trusted. The people must look to 
themselves for the protection of their rights. 
God in His providence will yet send this people 
a leader who will lead them from their house of 
bondage and wrest our great federal constitu- 
tion from the treasonable grasp of the federal 
supreme court of the United States and teach 
the members of that court the true meaning of 
their oath of office. Why does the possession 
of power, growing by what it feeds on, so debase 
the human character, so obscure the boundaries 
between right and wrong, and so blunt the hu- 
man conscience? May man never be trusted? 
Must he always be watched? ^^ Eternal vigi- 
lance is the price of liberty. '^ History does re- 

145 



14G A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

peat itself. If the states have their reserved 
rights, then the doctrine of implied powers has 
no place under a written constitution. If the 
doctrine of implied powers is correct, then the 
states will, ex necessitate rei, be compelled to 
exercise themselves as subordinate authorities — 
to quote Hamilton, a sort of local police, — sine 
qua non. Order will yet come out of all this con- 
fusion, although we read in our public prints 
of one distinguished politician publicly advocat- 
ing government through the courts, and of an- 
other advocating governmental control and own- 
ership of railroads, which have already blotted 
state lines out of existence. These words by 
Franklin in referring to the federal constitu- 
tion no longer seem to be the pessimistic utter- 
ance of an old man who had struggled in vain 
for his liberty: *^I am apprehensive, there- 
fore, — perhaps too apprehensive, — that the gov- 
ernment of these states may in future times end 
in a monarchy." Admit the existence of gov- 
ernment through the courts, in what would the 
stability of it consist! In the opinion of the 
judges then forming the court ! In the opinions 
of subsequent judges overruling the opinions of 
their predecessors? They would have the right 
to overrule their predecessors' opinions. The 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 147 

government would be overturned. How? By 
the stroke of a pen or by a few uttered words. 

Suppose the federal government takes all the 
railroads by purchase or assumes control of 
them under the interstate conmierce clause in 
the Constitution, which it has the right to do if 
this doctrine of implied powers is correct, what 
would be the result in this the first quarter of 
the present century! In the interests of peace 
and good government the executive would sim- 
ply announce to this people, as Cromwell an- 
nounced to his people, that it was best for him to 
continue in office, then proclaim himself pro- 
tector of the United States. One banquet, in 
jest, has already been held to proclaim the com- 
ing of our first king. ^ ^ Coming events cast their 
shadows before," and "many a true word is 
spoken in jest." 

What can prevent the absolute consolidation 
of our government if the government should 
control all our railroads? Centralization of all 
governmental power at Washington would be 
an actual necessity to this people, because in- 
terstate roads would not alone be involved, but 
all the roads, even those strictly and geographi- 
cally confined to a state, would come within the 
grasp of this all-powerful necessity. What 



148 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

would that form of government be but a mon- 
archy, with a thin transparent varnish of de- 
mocracy, so called, or republicanism, in name, but 
not in reality! This interstate clause is the only 
clause in the federal constitution from which the 
doctrine of implied powers could be deduced 
or applied with any pretense to justification in 
even illogical argument. And this clause will 
yet be invoked in aid of this scheme when the 
people have been more corrupted by money and 
when they have become more indifferent to the 
preservation of their political rights and their 
personal liberties because they have money both 
in their pockets and in the banks. 

John Fiske, in his Critical Periods of Ameri- 
can History, page 237, utters these prophetic 
words : 

^^Our federal government has indeed shown 
a strong tendency to encroach upon the province 
of the state governments, especially since our 
late civil war. Too much centralization is our 
danger to-day, as the weakness of the federal 
tie was our danger a century ago. The rule 
of the Federalist party was needed in 1789, 
as the rule of the Eepublican party was needed 
in 1861, to put a curb upon centrifugal tend- 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 149 

encies. But after federalism had fairly done its 
great work, at tlie beginning of the nineteenth 
century, it was well that the administration of 
our national affairs should pass into the hands 
of the party to which Thomas Jefferson and 
Samuel Adams belonged and which Madison, in 
his calm, statesmanlike wisdom, had come to 
join. And now that in our own day the disrup- 
tive powers have been even more thoroughly and 
effectually overcome, it is time for the principles 
of that party to be reasserted with fresh em- 
phasis. If the day should ever arrive (which 
God forbid) when the people of the different 
parts of our country shall allow their local af- 
fairs to be administered by prefects sent from 
Washington, and when the self-government of 
the states shall have been so far lost as that of 
the departments of France, or even so far as 
that of the counties of England,— on that day 
the progressive political career of the American 
people will have come to an end and the hopes 
that have been built upon it for the future hap- 
piness and prosperity of mankind will be 
wrecked forever.'' 

Let the doctrine of implied powers, govern- 
ment through the courts, and the ownership of 



150 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

the railroads by the government, — a revival and 
a combination of Cicero, Caesar and Claudius, — 
unite their influence, money, and power, and 
that day will be here. And is it not to the mone- 
tary interests of these three forces to combine? 
And when combined, who may resist them 1 Only 
a revolution more terrible than the French Eevo- 
lution. And if the federal supreme court is true 
to itself, to Alexander Hamilton, and to John 
Marshall, such a combination would be sus- 
tained by that court. Its love of power, coupled 
with the knowledge that judges cannot be im- 
peached and justly punished for opinions judi- 
cially uttered, would nerve them to be true to 
their past and to their idols. Pertinent to this 
subject, George Mason {Madison Papers, Vol. 2, 
page 1065) uttered these wise and thoughtful 
words in the convention : ^ ^ From the nature of 
man, we may be sure that those who have power 
in their hands will not give it up while they can 
retain it. On the contrary, we know that they 
will always, when they can, rather increase it.'' 
I believe Charles V is the only monarch known 
to history that ever resigned a crown. 

The English origin of the doctrine of implied 
powers is an established fact in English his- 
tory. Its American origin is too well known to 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 151 

justify a current comment as to the date of its 
beginning. We know why it was transplanted 
from England and brought to this country ; we 
know the object of its resurrection from dead 
history. We laiow what it has done and what 
it is now in the free country whose noble men in 
1776 fought, bled, and died that it might never 
again assert itself in our government. I quote 
from Gordy's Political Parties, Vol. II, page 1: 

^^The ship of state was driving before a ter- 
rible storm when James Madison took the helm 
in 1809. 

^^The Kepublicans had used their weapon of 
peace against France and England and it had 
broken in their hands. They had gained control ^ 
of the government because of their champion- 
ship of the liberty of the individual, because of 
their opposition to every measure that tended to 
increase the powers of the general government 
at the expense of those of the states. To pro- 
tect the liberty of the individual at all hazards, 
to vindicate the capacity of the people to govern 
themselves, was their special mission. Could 
they accomplish their mission and at the same 
time act on the theory that the United States 
was a nation ! Were the liberty of the individual 



152 A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 

and the centralization of power required by the 
assertion of nationality compatible? The Re- 
publicans [now Democrats] had maintained that 
they were not. Hence their theory of the central 
government — the foreign branch of our govern- 
mental system, the domestic branch being vested 
in the government of the states.'* 

Read between the lines, and you will have 
what this author ought to have written. This 
horrible and imperial doctrine was then under- 
stood, feared, denounced, and fought success- 
fully before the people ; but that contest could 
not enter the federal supreme court and oust 
from office judges who were striving to build up 
a government outside the Constitution that 
would control at their despotic will both the for- 
eign and the domestic branches of our dual sys- 
tem. Their constant assertion of this doc- 
trine is nothing less than an open declaration 
.of war against our dual system of government, 
against the rights of our citizens under the sov- 
ereignty of the states, against the rights of the 
states as political sovereignties and as original 
parties to the federal compact as fixed by the 
federal constitution and as explained by the de- 
bates of the federal convention. But a day of 
reckoning will come. ^^The mills of the gods 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 153 

grind slowly, but tliey grind exceeding small.'* 
The object of this doctrine as exj)lained by its 
introduction into our dual system was simply 
to add to the powers of the federal government 
— to which no limit could be fixed if submitted to 
by the states; powers so added in the future 
would destroy all the rights of the states, unless 
checked in its growth, fixed in its limitations, 
and thoroughly understood in its application, 
both in political and in fiscal affairs. What pow- 
ers have the states to clieck its growth or to fix 
its limitations! None — absolutely none. Its 
growth, development, limitations, and applica- 
tions depend exclusively upon the opinions of 
the federal supreme court, and that court, one 
of the three departments into which our system 
of government is divided, is not amenable to 
either the executive or the legislative depart- 
ment. The will of the federal supreme court is 
the law. Its opinions are the evidences of the 
operation of the doctrine of implied powers. 

Before quoting from Justice Gray's most re- 
markable opinion in Quillard vs. Greenman 
(Vol. 110, U. S. R., page 421), in many points 
possibly the most remarkable ever given to the 
country by the Supreme Court of the United 
States (it goes to the very verge of pronouncing 
the rights of the states and their citizens as 



154 A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 

merely the spontaneous and unmerited gifts of 
the federal government, which that government 
has the right to withhold at any time, or to pro- 
hibit the enjoyment and exercise thereof at its 
discretion), I quote three articles of the Consti- 
tution itself : 

' ^ The Constitution and the laws of the United 
States which shall be made in pursuance thereof 
— shall be the supreme law of the land/' 

^ ^ The enumeration in the Constitution of cer- 
tain rights shall not be construed to deny or dis- 
parage others retained by the people. ' ' 

^'The powers not delegated to the United 
States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it 
to the States are reserved to the states respect- 
ively or to the people." 

I here offer a few definitions of the word '^dis- 
parage," used in the second of the articles just 
quoted, as given by Webster: 

''To dishonor by a comparison with what is 
inferior, to lower in rank or estimation ; to un- 
dervalue ; to bring reproach on ; to vilify ; to de- 
base; syn. — to decry; depreciate; undervalue; 
vilify; reproach; detract from; derogate from; 
degrade. ' ' 

It would indeed be a curiosity in judicial logic 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDEK HAMILTON 155 

if the federal supreme court would undertake to 
reconcile some of its opinions with both these 
articles in the same argument. I have frequently 
seen distant references to Art. 10 in the courts* 
opinions, but never once to Art. 9, so far as I 
now recollect, — and surely I would not have for- 
gotten if the opinion had made the most distant 
allusion to the use and force of that word — Dis- 
parage. 

Vol. 110, U. S. R., page 438 : ^^No question of 
the scope and extent of the implied powers of 
Congress under the Constitution can be satisfac- 
torily discussed without repeating much of the 
reasoning of Chief Justice Marshall in the great 
judgment in McCullough vs. Maryland (4 
Wheat. 316), by which the power of Congress 
to incorporate a bank was demonstrated and 
affirmed, notwithstanding the Constitution 
does not enumerate, among the powers granted, 
that of establishing a bank or creating a cor- 
poration.'' 

Chief Justice Marshall did not demonstrate — 
nor could he demonstrate — that Congress under 
the Constitution had the power to create a bank 
or any other corporation, for that power was 
positively refused to Congress by a very large 



156 A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 

majority, and Chief Justice Marshall never was 
other than the exponent or expositor on the 
bench of Alexander Hamilton's English, nncon- 
stitntional and radical political opinions. This 
statement by Justice Gray is a perfect illustra- 
tion of the intellectual cowardice and moral 
slavery of the court to Hamilton's and to Mar- 
shall's political opinions. How could John Mar- 
shall demonstrate that to be a fact which was not 
true — affirm the existence of a right which had 
been refused and the exercise of a power posi- 
tively and indisputedly withheld! Will that 
court never do its own thinking? Some text 
writers have gone to far as to excuse some of 
the erroneous opinions on the theory that the 
Madison Papers had not then been published, 
consequently that Gray was unacquainted with 
the important facts contained in them that bore 
directly on his opinions. But possibly Justice 
Gray had read them. If he had, they made no 
impression on his mind. 

Justice Gray makes this quotation from the 
Chief Justice's opinion in the McCullough- 
Maryland case: '^Let the end be legitimate, let 
it be within the scope of the Constitution, and 
all means which are appropriate, which are 
plainly adapted to that end, which are not pro- 



/ 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 157 

hihited* but consist with the letter and spirit of 
the Constitution, are constitutional." 

Analyze the loose language of that sentence. 
AVho is to be the judge of the scope of the Con- 
stitution and define that compact! The facts 
which underlie its formation or the opinion of 
a court that disregards those facts — in fact, log- 
ically denies their existence. "Let the end be 
legitimate.'^ Legitimate for what ! For a pur- 
pose not granted, but prohibited, to Congress. 
Again, the opinion is the sole source from which 
to ascertain if that end be legitimate. ""^ * * 
and all means which are appropriate, which are 
plainly adapted to that end, which are not pro- 
hibited * * * " Alexander Hamilton knew 
that the right and the power to create a bank 
had been most positively prohibited to congress 
by a large majority of the states. If appro- 
priate, and plainh^ adapted to that end, how may 
congress usurp the power to create a bank, and 
John Marshall decide it to be constitutional, 
when it had been prohibited! This instance is 
not the only one in Marshall 's political opinions 
in which, blindly following Hamilton, his argu- 
ment logically refutes itself. 

After referring to Elliott's Debates and the 
Madison Papers, Judge Gray concludes the 
*Italics are mine. — F. T. F. 



158 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

paragraph of his argument to which I have re- 
ferred with this remarkable statement: 

^^As an illustration of the danger of giving 
too much weight, upon such a question, to the 
debates and votes in the Convention, it may also 
be observed that propositions to authorize Con- 
gress to grant charters of incorporation for 
national objects were strongly opposed, espe- 
cially as regarded banks, and defeated. The 
power of Congress to emit bills of credit as well 
as to incorporate national banks is now clearly 
established by decisions to which we shall 
presently refer." 

If the proposition to incorporate a bank was 
defeated, where did the power come from? It 
was enacted, enumerated, and granted by Alex- 
ander Hamilton; it was adopted and approved 
by John Marshall, and the decisions to which 
Justice Gray shall refer were each and all de- 
livered after ^^Old Hickory'' was dead and 
buried. 

What is the danger in referring to the de- 
bates and votes in the federal convention that 
formed the Constitution! Can a constitutional 
question that relates to the powers of govern- 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 159 

ment under a written constitution be correctly 
decided unless the consideration of that question 
is based on the facts of the history from which 
it springs and from which it gets its life, — its 
privilege and its authority to do this act or that, 
or to pass this law or that! The facts of his- 
tory as recorded in the Madison Papers are the 
womb from which the constitution was born. 
They, and only they, are its unerring interpre- 
ters. And why have they not been consulted and 
followed as a guide by the federal supreme 
court ? Because they would have checked the in- 
crease of the court's judicial power and su- 
premacy and have stopped the usurpations of 
jurisdiction of matter and things which of right 
belonged to the states. Why did Congress not 
create a bank — a national bank — after ^'Old 
Hickory'' removed the deposits, until after the 
war between the states, if a bank was legitimate, 
appropriate, within the scope of the Constitu- 
tion, and plainly adapted to some good end! 
Johnston, in American Politics, page 124, gives 
the reason for the removal of the deposits, 
among them, ^'that the bank's funds had been 
largely used for political purposes," ^^that its 
four government directors had been systematic- 
ally kept from knowledge of its management, ' ' 



160 A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 

and, on page 126, ' ' that the majority report com- 
plained that the powers of the committee had 
been so restricted by the bank that a full investi- 
gation had been impossible.'^ 

One more citation from Justice Gray, p. 450: 

*'To quote once more from the judgment 
in McCullough vs. Maryland, ^ Where the law 
is not prohibited and is really calculated to ef- 
fect any of the objects entrusted to the govern- 
ment, to undertake here to inquire into the de- 
gree of its necessity would be to pass the line 
which circumscribes the judicial department and 
to tread on legislative ground. ' ' ' 

Here is a complete and indisputable refuta- 
tion of Chief Justice Marshall's entire argu- 
ment, for, as the power to charter a bank was 
positively prohibited to Congress, its necessity 
could not be inquired into. What more can a 
strict constructionist demand than this state- 
ment! John Marshall assumed himself to be a 
congress by his judgment. This celebrated de- 
cision was rendered in the year 1819. Jackson 
removed the deposits in the year 1833, and by 
that act repealed John Marshall's judicial legis- 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDEK HAMILTON 161 

lative enactment. John Marshall died in the 
year 1835. Andrew Jackson by his heroic act 
usurped less power and authority than did 
John Marshall by his legislative enactment. The 
former ended where it began; the baleful in- 
fluence of the latter still survives. 

Why did the government not need a bank in 
those many and turbulent years after the old 
bank was blotted out of existence ? Did not poli- 
ticians need money? Did not the government 
need a corruption fund to give power and in- 
fluence to the wealthy classes and to buy offices 
for the Federalists throughout the land? What 
was the doctrine of implied powers (a political 
bastard like its father ; but, unlike its father, it 
knew its father) doing during all these years? 
Was it strengthening its vital forces by that long 
rest? 

It is refreshing to turn from such judicial 
stuff as the argument of Justice Gray, which the 
court allowed to go forth to the bar as its opin- 
ion, to the bold, manly, j)owerful, and patriotic 
dissenting opinion of Justice Field, of which 
the opening sentence is as follows : ^ ^ From the 
judgment of the court in this case, and from all 
the positions advanced in its support, I dis- 
sent.^' Another quotation: *^ There will be 



162 A STUDY IN- ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 

many who will adhere to the teachings and abide 
by the faith of their fathers. ' ' Possibly this man 
had old-fashioned Calvinistic blood in his veins. 
These questions are sufficient to this argu- 
ment. They expose the ambition and the object 
of Hamilton's bank project and Marshall's ex- 
position of this his imported doctrine. 

*^But [Field, U. S. R., p. 466] beyond and 
above all the objections which I have stated to 
the decision recognizing a power in Congress 
to impart the legal tender quality to the notes 
of the government, is my objection to the rule 
of construction adopted by the court to reach its 
conclusions, a rule which fully carried out would 
change the whole nature of our Constitution and 
break down the barriers which separate a gov- 
ernment of limited from one of unlimited 
powers. 

*^When the Constitution came before the con- 
ventions of the several States for adoption, ap- 
prehension existed that other powers than those 
designated might be claimed, and it led to the 
first ten amendments. When these were pre- 
sented to the States they were preceded by a 
preamble, stating that the conventions of a num- 
ber of the States had at the time of adopting the 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 



163 



Constitution expressed a desire, 'in order to 
prevent misconception or abuse of its powers 
that further dechitory and restrictive clauses 
should be added.' One of them is found in the 
Tenth Amendment, which declares that *the 
powers not delegated to the United States by the 
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, 
are reserved to the States respectively or to the 
people.' The framers of the Constitution, as 
I have said, were profoundly impressed with the 
evils which had resulted from the vicious legis- 
lation of the States making notes legal tender, 
and they determined that such a power should 
not exist any longer. They therefore prohibited 
the States from exercising it, and they refused 
to grant it to the new government that they had 
created. Of what purpose is it then to refer to 
the exercise of the power by the absolute or by 
the limited governments of Europe or by the 
States previous to our Constitution! Congress 
can exercise no power hy virtue of any sup- 
posed inherent sovereignty in the general gov- 
ernment* Indeed, it may be doubted whether 
the power can be correctly said to appertain to 
sovereignty in any proper sense as an attribute 
of an independent pohtical community. The 
power to commit violence, perpetuate injustice, 

♦Italics are mine.— F. T. F. 



164 A STUDY IIT ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 

take private property by force without compen- 
sation to the owner, and compel the receipt of 
promises to pay in place of money, may be exer- 
cised, as it often has been, by irresponsible au- 
thority ; but it can not be considered as belong- 
ing to a government founded upon law. But he 
that as it may, there is no such thing as a power 
of inherent sovereignty in the government of the 
United States. It is a government of delegated 
poivers, supreme within its prescribed sphere, 
hut powerless outside of it. hi this country sov- 
ereignty resides in the people, and Congress can 
exercise no power which they have not, hy their 
Constitution, entrusted to it; all else is with- 
held.'' 

*'It seems, however, to be supposed that, as 
the power was taken from the States, it could 
not have been intended that it should disappear 
entirely, and therefore it must in some way ad- 
here to the general government, notwithstand- 
ing the Tenth Amendment and the nature of the 
Constitution. 

^'The doctrine, that a power not expressly 
forhidden may he exercised, would, as I have 
observed, change the character of our govern- 
ment. If I have read the Constitution aright, 
if there is any weight to he given to the uniform 

♦Italics are mine. — F. T. F. 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 165 

teachings of our great jurists and of commen- 
taries previous to the late civil war, the true 
doctrine is the very opposite of this* If the 
power is not in terms granted, and is not neces- 
sary and proper for the exercise of a jDower 
which is thus granted, it does not exist. And in 
determining what measures may be adopted in 
executing the powers granted, Chief Justice 
Marshall declares that they must be appropriate, 
plainly adapted to the end, not prohibited, and 
consistent with the letter and spirit of the Con- 
stitution.-f Now, all through that instrument we 
find limitations upon the power, both of the 
general government and the State governments, 
so as to prevent oppression and injustice.'' 

Comment on this master-argument is unneces- 
sary. Discussion will not strengthen its force ; 
beyond all doubt the argument is the ablest in 
behalf of strict construction ever made in this 
country by judge, lawyer, or statesman. It does 
not refute itself, as do so many of John Mar- 
shall's opinions, when critically analyzed. 

Take the conclusion reached by Justice Gray 
and accepted by the court as law, constitutional 

*Italics are mine. — F. T. F. titalics are Justice 

Fields'. 



166 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

law in this country, which pretends to have a 
written constitution, and what is it ! Only this : 
any power or authority or right exercised, or 
claimed to be exercised, by right in any foreign 
land, under its form of government, unless each 
and all were expressly denied hac verba to our 
government, federal and state, by our Constitu- 
tion, can be constitutionally exercised by our 
government, and a law passed by congress for 
that purpose is constitutional by virtue of the 
doctrine of implied powers. Neither Charles I 
nor James ever stretched their prerogatives as 
king of England furtlier than did Justice Gray 
this English doctrine of ^ implied powers," so 
called in mock deference to our written Constitu- 
tion, and into which he injected by his argu- 
ment and illustrations the customs and powers 
of foreign countries and their governments. As 
I have said, the doctrine of state rights is once 
more beginning to attract the attention of our 
public men. Soon it will begin to disturb our 
political affairs. Although the stiletto of the 
judicial assassin has been thrust into its back 
again and again, still it lives after its long rest. 
Its next conflict will be with the doctrine of im- 
plied powers. 

Upon the side of that doctrine will be arrayed 



I 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDRE HAMILTON 167 

the power of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, with the usurpation and assertion of 
powers prohibited by the federal convention 
which formed our written constitution. Upon 
the side of state rights will be arrayed, in all 
their greatness, those two grand fundamental 
principles that are imbedded in the government 
in the affairs of man, of God himself, whether 
they relate to law, politics, or to religion, — that 
all government rests on the consent of the gov- 
erned and on the personality of man. I repeat, 
John Calvin — and John Calvin alone — discov- 
ered the personality of man; he found man a 
slave, and he made him a freeman ; he found man 
a subject, and he made him a citizen. And from 
this noble, fundamental, irresistible principle is, 
by an unerring logic, deduced that man has the 
right to govern himself and to establish his own 
government, that when established it has no 
power, right, nor authority not granted by him. 
The doctrine of state rights is part and parcel 
of our constitution, which is not only a compact, 
but a contract between the states composing this 
federal republic, and without which this republic 
would not be a federal government, but a mon- 
archy, with an elective sovereign as its executive 
head. The doctrine of implied powers is outside 



168 A STUDY IN ALEXANDEB HAMILTON 

the written constitution, and that compact has 
no provision that calls for its operative exercise. 
It justly belongs to a monarchy, of which the 
executive head is a king by inheritance. In the 
approaching conflict between these doctrines the 
leader of the constitutional government forces 
will not be a political quack, nor a political ad- 
vertiser, nor a political speculator or broker. 

Hamilton's fame as a statesman rests on his 
resurrection of the prerogative of the English 
king under the form and name of the doctrine 
of implied powers. In those brilliant essays in 
The Federalist in w'hich he himself combined 
the characters of the diplomatic wire-puller and 
the accomplished demagogue, concealing each 
from the public eye by the charm and fascination 
of English and compact logic, I find that he him- 
self, unmindful, or rather not knowing, that he 
would yet call this doctrine into existence, has in 
these very essays given to the thoughtful student 
of constitutional law the ablest refutation of 
this doctrine. I quote from No. LXXVIII. 

^ ^ The complete independence of the courts of 
justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Con- 
stitution. ' By a limited Constitution, I under- 
stand one which contains certain specific excep- 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON 169 

tions to the legislative authority; such, for 
instance, as that it shall pass no bills of at- 
tainder, no ex post facto laws, and the bke. Lim- 
itations of this kind can be preserved m practice 
no other way than through the medmm of courts 
of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all 
acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Con- 
stitution void. AYithout this all the reservations 
of particular rights or privileges would amount 
to nothing * * * It is far more rational to 
suppose that the courts were designed to be an 
intermediate body between the people and the 
legislature, in order, among other things, to 
ke^ep the latter within the limits assigned to their 
authoritv. The interpretation of the laws is the 
proper and peculiar province of the courts. A 
Constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded 
by the judges, as a fundamental law. It there- 
fore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, 
as well as the meaning of any particular act 
proceeding: from the legislative body. If there 
should happen to be an irreconcilable variance 
between the two, that which has the superior ob- 
ligation and validity ought, of course, to be pre- 
ferred ; or in other words, the Constitution ought 
to be preferred to the statute; the intention ot 
the people to the intention of their agents. 



170 A STUDY IN ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

^ ^ Nor does this conclusion by any means sup- 
pose a superiority of the judicial to legislative 
power. It only supposes that the power of the 
people is superior to both; and that where the 
will of the legislature, declared in its statutes, 
stands in opposition to that of the people de- 
clared in the Constitution, the judges ought to be 
governed by the latter, rather than the former. ' ' 

The right or power to incorporate was one of 
those ^'certain specified exceptions'' to the leg- 
islative authority and "the lihe" mentioned by 
the distinguished Federalist. No matter what 
the occasion or its demands, Alexander Hamil- 
ton always obeyed the injunction of the Apostle 
Paul — 'Ho be all things to all men, hoping 
thereby to gain some,'' and always wrenching 
it by his conduct in its application from its true 
interpretation. I will close my argument with a 
short quotation from Bancroft's History of the 
Constitution, Vol. 2, page 9 : 

*'That all power not granted to the general 
government remained with the states was the 
opinion of every member of the Convention — 
but they held it a work of supererogation to 
place in the Constitution an express recognition 
of the reservation." 



A STUDY IN ALEXANDEE HAMILTON" 171 

What a painful proof of tlie finite mind of 



man! 



I have now passed in what I believe to be a 
just review of Alexander Hamilton ; his private 
life; his character; his theories of government 
as they are to be found in the Madison Papers, 
the notes of which were examined by him and 
admitted by him to be correct ; his argument in 
behalf of our written constitution in The Fed- 
eralist, by which he contended and proved that 
our government was a federal, not a national, 
government, and how in a moment — in the 
twinkling of an eye — he kicked his theories out 
of his pathway as loathsome weeds as soon as he 
became Secretary of the Treasury ; his conduct 
and measures proposed by him as Secretary of 
the Treasury, their purpose, their aim and their 
object, their influence and their effect through 
our federal courts upon our government and its 
political affairs. 

And what is the logical conclusion? I answer 
my own question, thus : In intellect Alexander 
Hamilton was a giant ; in character Alexander 
Hamilton was a moral weakling. 



JUL 3\ il^ll 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 

m 31 '9" 



